


Of Ice and Men

by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alpine Skiing, Disability, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Paralympics, Prosthesis, Sports Announcers and Interviews, Super-G, Surprisingly light on the angst if I'm honest, Threesome - M/M/M, Threesome sex and also twosome sex, Winter Olympics, biathlon - Freeform, i'll add more tags as we go!, pyeongchang 2018, relationship dynamics, sports AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-08-23 19:05:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 113,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John/pseuds/SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John
Summary: Greg wants Sherlock to win his first Olympic Gold medal.Sherlock wants John to winhisfirst Olympic Gold medal.John wants Greg to come to bed wearing all four ofhisOlympic Gold medals, and you didn't really think this would be that terribly serious after reading that title, did you?Bundle up, it's a Winter Olympics OT3!





	1. Overdone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drinkingcocoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkingcocoa/gifts).



> All my thanks to drinkingcocoa for not only bidding on me in last year's Fandom Trumps Hate Auction, but for also waiting A YEAR for the results of her incredible donation. Our novel-length email exchanges on the intricate personality quirks of these three ridiculous characters form the backbone of this story. She also didn't blink an eye when, after weeks of insightful, probing, and deep plot suggestions and fic topics on her part, I basically went "yeah, ok, but when if they all wore SKIS?!"
> 
> All my gratitude to the first person I ever felt brave enough to ask to be my "full-time" beta, the extremely talented [bakerstmel.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie4180/works/) She has already been, and will continue to be the perfect burning fire to forge this fic, and y'all owe her some seriously devoted worship because she puts up with some LONG unpolished chapters and insanely wordy paragraphs takes it in her capable stride. This fic would be a hot mess without her.
> 
> \--
> 
> For whatever reason, I have exclusively listened to the band Bombay Bicycle Club while dreaming up and writing this fic. It has no deeper meaning or lyrical connection other than that I once listened to them while driving through the snow-filled Eastern Sierras with my partner on an anniversary trip, and so their music + snowy hills + romance are now all permanently linked in my mind. Shoutout to the true MVP who first used a Bombay Bicycle Club song in a Sports AU, the untouchable earlgreytea68 with "Shuffle" in ["The Bang and the Clatter."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/744242/chapters/1386629/)
> 
> For this chapter, listen to "Overdone" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzztt2NimXc/)
> 
>  
> 
> Please enjoy!

_3 March 2018_

And so, in the end, it all really does come down to this. 

He really should have been able to predict it would end up this way. But then, who on earth possibly could have? Who could have assumed that nineteen years of work would be ultimately erased in favor of less than ninety measly seconds? 

Well, he could. Of all the people on earth, he could have assumed. 

He grips his poles through the thin gloves clinging to his fingers, shivering when the tips scratch across the crunchy surface of the thick ice. The wind is still howling, snarling through the Jeongseon Alpine Centre pass. He can barely make out the outlines of the brimming stands far below through the heavy swaths of fresh fog, hidden by the looming turns of the waiting course. The storm is groaning down at them, threatening to reappear and snatch the course away with its lightning claws, but he’s decided that he’ll be damned if the weather delays him again. He’ll ski through the center of a thundercloud itself if it means finally getting his deserved run. Finally being _done_.

The cheers and the booms of the announcers have long disappeared into the wind, hissed away across the untouched mountains and wafting snow. The starting gate is silent.

It’s how Sherlock Holmes prefers it; everyone who wants to walk away with their dignity intact knows not to make a sound when he’s up to ski. No cheers, no questions, no cowbells, no chants or claps. 

No coaches. No other competitors. 

His is the last run.

Worlds away, in the chaos of the crowded grandstands, he knows his expressionless face is being blasted across a gigantic, sparkling screen. He is nothing but a collection of equipment and advertisements and the shining red, white, and blue of the French flag—the lycra practically sewn to his skin, the impenetrable goggles covering his eyes, the helmet plastered over his head and curls, the black skull bandana over his mouth. 

In fact, the only bits of bare skin left from the top of his head to the soles of his feet are two small strips of his upper cheeks, pink and stinging with the bitter March cold. They’re the only stripes of flesh to remind the crowd that he’s a human being beneath the ski suit and the bib number and the gear. That he’s a conscious, breathing man about to fling himself down nearly four thousand feet of ice at eighty miles per hour. That he isn’t a machine.

Well, not fully, at least. Not yet. 

By now the television announcers will be babbling along, idiotically reminding the crowd that it’s the Super-G finals ( _of course it’s the finals, why else would they be willingly freezing to death in the stands watching?_ ). That, in a shocking twist of fate at the end of the day, Sherlock Holmes _might_ just be too far behind to make up the time to win Gold, and that _maybe_ he can still walk away with the disgraceful-but-nobody-would-ever-admit-it Bronze. 

Maybe. But probably not. The human body's only able to go so fast on a pair of skis, etcetera, etcetera.

They’ll be talking about the fall, about rumors, about Sochi. That his coach’s twenty-year run of French dominance in the Super-G might be about to be tarnished by the turncoat Brit, the unwanted never-darling about to throw away the wasted coaching and guidance of the world’s most beloved skier. The man they all wish was about to fly down the mountainside for France instead, dazzling them all with his smile of perfect white teeth and his accent filled with pride when he accepts a fifth gold.

It’s all so inanely predictable. Boring.

“ _Still a mystery how Greg Lestrade manages to coach Holmes_ ,” they’ll be saying with a wry laugh as the camera fixates on his face staring down the steep course, his lips silently talking through the turns beneath his bandana. Standing at the top of the desolate world.

“ _Well, you have to hand it to him, if our reigning champion Super-Greg wanted to try and pass on the torch for France Super-G gold, he couldn’t have picked a skier to coach other than Holmes,_ ” the more sympathetic announcer will butt in, as if it isn’t painfully _obvious_.

And the camera will zoom in on the grip of his fingers around his pole, steady and focused as the first announcer quips back, “ _Maybe on paper, yes, but still . . . at what cost?_ ”

“ _You mean his interview skills?_ ” the other will nervously laugh.

The announcer will soberly shake his head. “ _I mean, you just can’t forget what happened in Sochi, or even earlier in these Olympics during that prelims disaster, and the rumors are swirling that this is his last Olympics, even at twenty-eight. Holmes here may well be about to blow Lestrade’s first chance at coaching Gold, and who knows when another French hopeful of Lestrade’s caliber will ever come along . . ._ ”

Sherlock clenches his chest against a fresh burst of icy cold; the storm is rolling back in, and he can feel the lightning crackling in the tips of his fingers, shooting along the length of his frozen skis. The previous skier’s scores have just been announced, judging by the fresh wave of buzzing walkie-talkies behind him broadcasting the time. The numbers flash through Sherlock’s mind, but he doesn’t even register them—adds them to the list of thousands of course times he’s claimed to have forgotten over the years, but knows he’ll never really be able to forget. 

The Austrian had started a critical turn right at the top of the course one half-second too late. The rest of his run didn’t even matter. He was done.

Sherlock sucks in a deep breath, filling his lungs as they press out against the skin-tight layer of lycra. He tells himself that the churning in his gut is just because he’s hungry, not something as silly as nerves. They’re looking at him, now, waiting for his signal to start. He sets his jaw and starts to silently shuffle his way to the gate, already halfway down the course in his mind, flying through the icy air and shards of ice and plumes of snow, when:

“Sherlock Holmes, any guesses at how John Watson will greet you after your run?”

Disgust burns in his fingertips.

He doesn’t turn his head away from the first blue flag as a shocked gasp makes its way through the course attendants. Sherlock’s fingers grip his poles hard enough to break the carbon and aluminum in two. He doesn’t move away his bandana to speak.

“I imagine he’ll applaud, like every other tired, freezing person in the stands at the end of a final run,” he says through gritted teeth.

The bright-eyed, fresh-faced NBC interviewer takes another step forward, oblivious to the horrified stares at his back. The rouge on his cheeks is two shades too pink. His cameraman follows, shoving the camera into the side of Sherlock’s face. Sherlock swallows down a harsh growl.

The man laughs, too-white teeth shining like the snow, and adjusts the stylish NBC logo beanie on his head. “And your chances at Gold? Are they truly slipping away? I imagine Watson might do more than just applaud if you can pull off the final run of your life, don’t you thi—?”

“Stop! That is enough!” Rough, gloved hands belonging to a course attendant suddenly appear out of nowhere, dragging the young man away. “You know no interviews once an athlete is in the gate. You will be receiving a fine for this . . .”

An anticlimactic scuffle ensues. The camera zooms in to try and catch Sherlock’s response, struggling against the firm grip of a second course attendant sliding in the snow.

Sherlock keeps his lips sealed shut.

And still, interviewer calls back over his shoulder, fruitlessly hefting his mic up into the air and waving it towards the gate. “And for Watson? Any last message for John Watson before you make your final run at your illusive Olympic Gold?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer.

“Any reason why your coach isn’t up here with you? Sherlock Holmes, any comment on that?”

He hardly listens as the interviewer’s protests fade away into the howling wind and snow, disappearing into the fog. Nobody else speaks as they calmly resume their gate positions, as if it had never even happened, and as if the earth itself has frozen solid.

But Sherlock’s answer repeats in his mind like a death knell tolling, howling and booming across the endless sea of white slopes. It hisses at him that he doesn’t even know whether John Watson will clap, or cheer, or cry, or kiss him, because he doesn’t even know if John Watson is down there in the stands to _begin_ with. 

And, while he’s at it, he doesn’t know if his coach is down there either. If the two of them haven’t just packed their bags and their medals and left him to fling himself down a no doubt well-deserved ice cliff of self-pity all alone, to a chorus of strangers. Maybe they’ll watch it on telly on the plane. Maybe they won’t.

He silently adds these thoughts to the growing list of things that have spiraled out of his knowledge or control, like apparently the fact that his entire career would come down to ninety bleak seconds, or the question of where John Watson slept last night, or the Austrian’s official time ( _one minute and thirty-one seconds point eighteen. Abysmal_ ).

There is a monstrous camera still shoved in his face, this one the official Olympics lens broadcasting down to the screen in shining HD. Sherlock smirks behind his bandana, even as another emotion threatens to spill across his face. The HD lens can’t see the agonizing hours of blood and sweat that have lead up to this pathetic moment, grasping with mad claws like a dying animal for Bronze. Smearing the pristine snow with his grunting skis.

It can’t see the first time he ever stole a pair of skis when he was nine and flung himself down a mountain and his mind went quiet. It can’t see the bruise sucked into the crook of his neck by a pair of chapped lips (from a whole week ago, now, nearly faded), or the whole wheat toast Greg tried to shove in him that he should have just given in and eaten for breakfast. It can’t see the residual fear from his fall still flicker through his eyes as he peers over the edge of the gate. 

It can’t see the first time Greg shook his shocked hand and said, “I will coach you, Monsieur Holmes, if you can prove to me that you are really clean.”

And it cannot see, couldn’t possibly see through the shining black shield of his goggles, that there are unwanted tears building up in his eyes. Embarrassing, sentimental, ridiculous tears, and yet they’re there, threatening to build up condensation on the lenses, and Sherlock can’t even blame them on the sting of the damn wind, or the harsh reflection of the storming sun glinting off the snow.

They’re just there. And they hurt. And they’re forcing a hot bubble of air up the back of his throat, and maybe he’ll never get to have a Gold medal around his neck, and maybe that doesn’t even fucking matter, and maybe he can’t—

The first pair of flags sag dramatically with the wind, pinned down to the course by the roaring gust of air. He blinks, then focuses his blurry eyes on the harsh ruts from the skis of his competitors that have carved themselves into the earth, revealing the choices and mistakes of every man who came before him.

“Marks, Holmes,” a disembodied voice murmurs to his right.

He nods. He’s heard a disembodied voice murmur, “Marks, Holmes,” thousands of times before.

He doesn’t shake out his limbs, doesn’t even move his neck, as he scoots up to the starting line, inch by careful inch. 

The earth falls away before him, disappearing off the edge of a cliff. Now, there is only white, there is only fog, there is only standing at the top of the world and about to step off, there is only the course, and his muscles, and the perfect line of attack from his skis. There is only—

Greg’s voice, from the night before, whispered half-asleep into his ear.

“ _What’re’you doin’here?_ ” he’d murmured, slow and hot and curling through Sherlock’s ever-tense bones, melting the hard rod of his sternum, freeing his lungs so they could breathe for the first time since February 9th.

“ _Can’t sleep,_ ” he’d whispered back.

And there is only the memory of Greg’s strong arms around his back, for the first time in days, in lifetimes, in millennia, despite _everything_ ; the way the hairs on Greg’s bare forearms had surrounded him with fuzzy warmth, like being enfolded into a field of summer grass in the middle of a dark, freezing Pyeongchang winter night. Like having the bones of his body rearranged to be back at home, re-set, powered off and then powered back on again. Softened.

There is only Greg’s voice, quiet and thin, but Sherlock had still felt the pain hidden behind it, bravely, selflessly telling him in the dark, “ _Whatever happens tomorrow morning, you’re alright. You know that? Whatever happens on that course, however you do, you know I’ll still—_ ”

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” Sherlock had finally whispered, pleaded, begged.

There is only the memory of Greg’s arms going tense, just for a moment, pausing his long rubs across Sherlock’s back in the dark cocoon.

There is only the hurt sound that had whined in Greg’s throat, the sharp pinch in his lungs, as he pulled Sherlock firmly against his chest, settling them both beneath the cheap Village sheets, as he pressed his snow-chapped lips into Sherlock’s curls and said, “ _Alright, love. It’s alright. I know._ ”

And there is only the silent question Sherlock had asked through the touch of his fingers. The unvoiced, longing, mourning, _Where is John?_

And there is Greg’s silent response, in the way his body had curled up to take up less space in the tiny bed, as he held onto Sherlock so tightly it was as if none of this had even happened, as if they were back in London getting ready for a morning of homemade coffee and eggs, and where the bedsheets would smell like John’s muscle relaxant cream, and where nobody for the entire day would ever pick up a pair of skis. Greg’s silent response of, _I don’t know. I wish I did._

But he’s not wrapped in strong arms in a bed anymore—the bed he had to climb up the side of a building and pick a window lock just to get into. He’s not falling asleep to short grey hairs pressed against his temple, or lying sheltered from the world by a muscled chest and a broad back.

He’s not down in the stands with John. If John’s even there.

And ah, yes, that’s the final piece of the puzzle, isn’t it? Those inconvenient tears, trickling down his cheeks now to catch in the dips of his goggles. Fogging his view. Hiding the harsh ruts from the skis carved into the earth.

He hunkers down into his starting squat. His thighs spark and burn.

_Beep . . ._

He should have begged Greg to stay up at the starting gate with him, to hell with tradition, to hell with the past. Begged him to whisper last-minute instructions into his back. To secretly give a warm press to his now-shaking hand. To be _here_ —

_Beep . . ._

And he’s about to spectacularly let him down now, isn’t he? Let them all down. A lifetime of work, nearly four years of coaching, and he’s about to let the skiing darling of the world down.

His darling . . .

_Beep . . ._

Sherlock aggressively plants his sticks into the ice. He rocks back once on his heels. The world becomes a wet blur save for the first piercing blue flag.

_Beep . . ._

And John couldn’t be up there with him even if he wanted to be, even if he wasn’t so angry he wouldn’t answer texts, wouldn’t even wish him good luck the night before. And Sherlock should have told John that he would carry him up there on his back, would have carried him even if it meant crawling on his hands and knees up the steep ice to the gate, would have done anything, _everything_ to have John Watson by his side, ringing one of those ridiculous cow bells and screaming for him at the start, should have—

_Beep . . ._

And now he’s going to fling himself down a storming mountain as the HD camera loses sight of a black skull bandana disappearing into the dangerous mist.

He’s going to punish himself, rip himself apart, screaming and thrashing until he finally hurls himself to the bottom of the mountain and looks up at a blinking neon time on a board and loses. Loses everything.

Alone.

_Boop . . ._

Sherlock Holmes bursts through the starting gate to oppressively silent air. Shocked and embarrassed and amazed that he’s just learned something brand new about himself even at a full twenty-eight, even at his final run of the Olympics, even in the middle of one last race.

He’s just learned that he hadn’t wanted his customary silence at the gate . . .

_First turn, knees screaming, thighs burning, sticks clutching into the icy ground, flying down the face of the roaring mountain, soaring into the storming sky, skis rocketing his lean body through the punishing snow, slapping the flags with his forearm on turn number two, the hissing kiss of the wind on the two slivers of his cheeks._

. . . that he’d wanted two specific people to be applauding. To be cheering him on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sherlock is competing in Super-G, which is a variation of alpine (downhill) skiing. Super-G stands for "Super Giant Slalom" (yes, really) and means that skiers compete by individually racing down a giant downhill course made up of spaced gates (two poles with a flag on top connecting them) to achieve the fastest time.  
> The gates in Super-G are spaced further apart than in the other alpine events Slalom and Giant Slalom (yes, really really), so the skiers don't have to make as sharp of turns, which allows Super-G skiers to reach much higher speeds, similar to speeds reached in the Downhill event where the gates are even *farther* apart. Super-G is basically 'Downhill Lite'. Competitors ski two runs in the finals, and the fastest combined time wins gold.
> 
> Watch a video of the Sochi 2014 Men's Super-G Highlights [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIOKGEP4zmg&t=95s/)
> 
> -I've been made aware that skiers in the UK would most likely call skiing poles "sticks," but since there are many nationalities in this fic, largely the announcers, I'm sticking with what seems to be the more universal "poles" (when speaking in English, at least).
> 
> -I am suspending a lot of disbelief for this fic, in terms of how the Winter Olympics is structured, how the Super-G and Biathlon events are organized, and many more aspects you'll see later on. It's all in the name of the story, and in the name of fun! What is in here has been researched as best as I can, and I'll try to point out where I'm knowingly changing something or making an error. At the end of the day, though, I'm not an Olympic skier, or even a skier, so there's a lot I don't know. Be forgiving! <3
> 
> -I'm very excited to be back in the swing of posting a long Johnlock (well, Johnlockstrade) fic, so I'd love to hear from you in the comments! Thank you for reading!


	2. Always Like This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! A few things before you dive in:
> 
> -Note that the date and time is listed at the beginning of chapters. This is important!  
> -Greg is very French. He says a lot of French things. Translations are at the bottom for new phrases introduced each chapter, but when in doubt, it's probably just a curse word. Thanks to @phdsg_ on twitter for providing the lovely translations! All language errors you see in the final product below are my own.  
> -There *will* be things in this chapter which do not make sense, particularly related to John. I promise you'll get answers, some of them in the very next chapter!
> 
> Listen to "Always Like This" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh9FfmMN-ik/)
> 
> Enjoy!

_5 February 2018, 5:57 a.m._

 

There’s a body lying against him.

It’s lying against him in the sea of warm linen sheets, sinking into the blessed mattress and enveloping his skin, and it only takes a moment of tracing the curves of it with his sleepy fingertips for him to realize that this body isn’t sharp, or long, or made of fierce angles or thrilling bones. No, instead this body lying against him is firm, solid, hot muscle and a broad chest, soft hair and muscle relaxant and fresh cotton and—

_Oh, oh finally . . ._

“Come here, you,” he rumbles. His rough voice hums through the sleepy silence of the room, an avalanche of warmth tumbling down across the pillows.

The body hears it; it moans awake and mumbles something unintelligible before turning and burying itself immediately against his chest, holding on incredibly tight.

Greg swallows over the bubble of emotion in his throat, like relief bursting through his veins and straight down to his toes. Like the glorious teetering of his life being imperceptibly shifted into a humble balance, reliably held.

Greg brushes his lips across the desperately missed short hairs currently tucked beneath his chin as his fingertips rove over the entirety of John’s back, tracing the lines of ink he knows are there, every memorized inch. It startles him how much his body yearns to clutch John to his chest—as if the contours of his muscles and bones could sear themselves into Greg’s palms permanently so he never forgets their true shape.

“You did not wake me when you got in,” he whispers, turning it into a question.

John breathes a raspy chuckle into his chest. It vibrates against his palms, the same way his skis always groan straight down into the marrow of his bones, molding themselves to the skeleton of his calves and feet.

“I did wake you,” John says, and Greg swallows hard again, shuts his eyes in a wash of hot emotion when John’s voice adorably cracks on the second word. John drapes a heavy arm over his hip. “Woke you to say hello and you flung my hand away and said, ‘can’t a man get a bloody night of rest around here, _pour l’amour du ciel_ ,’ before you fell back asleep.”

Greg barks a hoarse laugh as John presses a smiling cheek to his neck. “Your accent is shit,” Greg murmurs. “You haven’t learned anything from me all this time.”

John snorts. “Mine is shit? Listen to yours.” John kisses his chest and hums. “You looked like you needed the sleep.”

And God, the feel of him back in his arms, back in their bed, back on his skin, the sound of his soft voice so close to his ear . . .

“ _Putain_ , it was too long, wasn’t it?” Greg whispers, sobering, as he wraps his palm around the back of John’s head.

He feels John nod immediately against his hand as Greg pulls John closer, half rolling him on top of his body.

John swallows hard as he settles across Greg’s stomach and side, his head tucked against his shoulder. “Yeah. I know.”

Greg rubs his eyes with his free hand to try and wake up his brain, and the questions he’s been wondering in between the quick and rare ‘how are you?’ texts over the last three months finally come pouring out in a breathless stream. “How did it go? The flight? Your last week of prep with the new coach? What was your final time? That piece with the BBC—they finished filming it, _non_? It is all edited? And the new joint, were they able to fix that sticking point in the—“

“Later,” John says, gently cutting him off. He punctuates the word with a sudden roll of his hips that sears through every muscle in Greg’s body like warm water, melting him down into the bed, tensing through his thighs. Silencing his questions ( _what questions? what is there even to ask? he’s home . . ._ ).

 _Merde_ , John’s already growing thick and hard.

“Let me just . . .” John’s saying as his wet lips trace the words up Greg’s bare shoulder. “God, babe, come here, let me just . . .”

“Yeah . . .”

“Need to feel you.”

“ _Ouais_ , get on me, there . . .”

And he’s lost. There’s a body on top of him now, a body Greg’s missed with half the fibers of his being. A body which has walked like a ghost by his side for months, constantly reminding him of its absence, the lack of its breath and laugh, the silence of its voice. 

And now that same body is physically pressing him down into the mattress with power and weight, groaning into his ear, clutching hard onto Greg’s shoulders and back as if Greg hasn’t grown softer over the last four years, as if he’s still just as strong as he was the last time he stepped down off a podium, or the first time John Watson ever lay down and had sex with him in a real bed. As if he’s worth being _clutched_.

Greg traces his hands over miles of bare, warm skin, shivering at the lines of new muscle surging up under his palms, the new broadness to John’s shoulders, the hard strength of his upper arms, the press of his flat stomach, the terrifying clench of his thighs around his own waist. 

They did a number on him in California the last few months. Must have, to turn an already fit body into the heavy weight of lean muscle currently draped across Greg’s chest as they both hum and groan. 

And Greg suddenly wonders, even as John slowly kisses his way along his jaw, what John’s little hotel room looked like near Donner Summit, and if he had anyone there to help massage his muscles at the end of every long, exhausting day, if anyone at the centre even offered to help him, to eat dinner with him so he wouldn’t have to sit in a room alone watching something horrible or boring on a screen. And Greg’s cheeks burn at the sudden shame over how many nights he massaged Sherlock’s muscles, sorted and checked all his cleaned gear, then absolutely collapsed into bed back at the resort in France, Sherlock beside him. And neither one of them ever picked up a phone to call John Watson from bed, to ask him if he was sore, if he’d eaten, if he’d gotten a PR time, if he knew he was missed . . . 

God, but they’d been so _busy_ , training completely draining ten hour days, and doing their own press and media circuit, and John would have still been out on his own mountain when they were done each night, and the cell reception was always shit, and they sent texts, didn’t they?

And at the end of it all, John apparently slipped quietly back into their home, into their own bed, and simply let Greg keep sleeping because he looked like _he_ needed the sleep. Greg Lestrade, whose name no Olympic announcers are currently preparing to say. Who didn’t even suck it up to meet John at the airport in the dead of night. Who never called him for three long months just to say, ‘ _je t’aime_ ’.

But ah, right. There’s a body lying on top of him. A body with an erection and hot breaths and wet moans gasped into his ear. A body who wants to clutch Greg and kiss him and fuck, and the thought of it zips a fresh wave of heat straight down to Greg’s cock.

Greg’s voice is unrecognizably rough as John holds him down, kissing around his ear the way he knows Greg likes. “God, they did a number on you, didn’t they?” Greg says, squeezing the muscle of John’s biceps.

John smiles, quiet and soft, then suddenly shifts. He grips Greg by the shoulders, lifts him up from the mattress, then slams him back down with a grunt, knocking the sleepy air from Greg’s surprised lungs.

“Didn’t just fuck around there sitting on my arse,” John says. “That wouldn’t’ve been worth it.” 

Greg grips the back of John’s thighs. “So you feel that it was worth it?” he tries to ask, and John bites the thin skin over Greg’s collarbone as he murmurs, “Guess we’ll see in a few weeks . . .”

And Greg can’t even respond before John’s mouth closes around his lips, licking straight across his tongue as if the source of his oxygen is buried deep inside Greg’s chest.

And Christ, he missed kissing him, missed the sounds John makes when he’s tasting, panting, humming and hard and _wanting_. . .

Greg hums into his mouth. Deepens the kiss with a wet sigh and a rough grasp of John’s hair. John tastes like dreams, and a midnight cup of tea, and airplane seats, and snow. He tastes like the slick slide of waxed skis across virgin slopes, the frantic whisper of flying through the air on solid ice. 

And there’s the pulsing heat of his thickening cock surrounded by soft hair, burning white like a piercing flame where it’s starting to rock against Greg’s stomach. The wet caress of his generous lips. John’s rough, steady hands holding his jaw. The groaning vibration of his rolling, soft tongue between his lips.

Greg kisses him, and he holds on, and he burns at the heavy weight of John back in his arms, hot and solid and moaning between his legs, draping his body across him, gasping into his open mouth. And Greg can’t even remember the last time he was this hard, where the thrumming desire so easily burned in his limbs, crackling along his thighs. Where he just wanted to feel, to be held, to be covered in kisses and sweat and spit and pink rash from stubble. Where he wanted to lie back, hold tight to another warm body, and just breathe through the hot waves of toe-curling pleasure. Just hold on and close his eyes and groan.

He pulls back from John’s heated kiss to gasp for air. His wet lips crackle in the cold air of the flat, stinging from the rasp of John’s tongue and teeth. He looks up at John—his eyes closed and mouth open and pure _want_ painted on his lips, hidden in the corners of his eyes. The want for home, and for their bed, and for _him_ , and a bead of sweat starts to drip down from John’s hairline, his hair freshly cut, handsome ribbons of soft gold.

And then he sees it. There’s a deep bruise sucked into the skin of John’s neck, a fresh one that looks like it’s from the night before, when Greg had been asleep.

Tendrils of beautiful fire work their way through Greg’s chest as he bends his neck to kiss it, placing his lips perfectly around the bursting purple mark. He traces it with his tongue, rasps across it with his teeth. _Et mon dieu_ , that rush . . . 

It’s that fullness he can’t name, that threatening emotion which has constantly dangled itself in front of him the last two years like a promise of _right_ , the steady falcon with its tail feathers and both of its wings as it soars over the snow, unaware of the miniscule skiers beneath.

John moans in his throat and shakes on top of him, holding Greg’s head close against his neck with an unsteady palm. Greg licks at the bruise with a warm hum, tasting the ghosts of tea and uneaten toast and icy wool coat on the fragile skin of John’s throat. He sucks it, just once, to add his own burst of purple to the skin, and John curses under his breath as Greg finally caresses it one last time with a wet kiss.

“Gonna make me unfit for the camera,” John breathes. He rubs his erection perfectly along Greg’s own, building their rhythm, finding the right pulse.

“Good thing they already filmed your piece, then, _superstar_. Can stay out of the limelight now for a change, _non_?”

John gasps into his ear. He’s dripping and thick. “Christ, piss off, you. There’ll be a camera on me in a few weeks when I either win or embarrass myself, won’t there?”

But before Greg can find the oxygen to say anything back, to tell John that he would rip down the whole sky with his bare hands if John ends up embarrassing himself, so everything will be covered in darkness forever, and so no one will have to see, John’s palm presses over his mouth. He begs Greg with just the heat in his eyes to lick the skin, to cover his hand with the wetness from his tongue.

Greg does.

It’s their way, the way their pieces fit—have always fit—and it’s only as John’s glistening wet palm starts snaking its path between their warm bodies, where Greg has grown slick and hot beneath John’s hips, it’s only then that Greg realizes the odd tremor in John’s spine. The way he’s holding himself up all on one trembling elbow—the same arm John needs to use in a few short weeks to grip his poles, to aim, to shoot a gun across the snow.

 _Bordel_ , he is still so utterly incapable of properly loving John Watson. And John is still so incredibly strong.

“ _Allez_. Onto your side,” Greg breathes, glad that his frustration at himself doesn’t show through in his voice. He taps John’s right hip and nods at the empty stretch of bed.

John falls immediately onto the sheets with a grateful huff. Greg’s chest expands with relief.

It’s the sort of thing that used to stop everything back in the day, back when everything was new, and uncertain, and fragile. It used to cause a conversation—uncomfortable words with hesitant eyes. An ‘are you sure’ and ‘no really, I’m fine’ and a horrible grimace with pain pills later in the night. And Sherlock out in the kitchen with him at three in the morning, talking to him when he can’t sleep through the pain. And Greg in bed alone. 

But now John simply breathes his own rough sigh of relief; he smiles, then pulls Greg into his body with one arm while the other hand wraps straight around Greg’s cock.

The air is punched from Greg’s lungs. He shakes at John’s firm grip pumping his pulsing cock. He melts. “John, _mon dieu_ . . .”

“God, I missed you.”

“I should have called more. I should have—”

“Dreamt of you . . .”

“ _Tu m’as manqué_.”

“I know. I’m here now. Babe, come here . . . c’mere . . .”

John scratches his fingernails through Greg’s hair and bites the lobe of his ear, whirling his tongue inside. Greg curses and grasps John’s lower back above him, the thrusting power of his hips, and his palm glides along the bursting strength of John’s thigh—the thigh which is snaking between Greg’s trembling legs, pressing their bodies together in a tight heat, and John’s hand, his warm, powerful, steady, capable hand.

“Right there,” Greg gasps. He whines high in his throat. “There . . .”

God, it’s going to be fast. Bright and hot and lovely and the fresh cut of firm muscle along John’s shoulder and the rough grunts coming from his beautiful throat and the bruise and—

“You like that?” John growls. He pants in Greg’s ear as he twists his wrist along Greg’s cock, tightening his pumping grip along his dripping erection. “Yeah? You feel that? You like—”

“ _Putain—_ ”

“Lemme feel you. Lemme see you come . . .”

“I’m . . . _Oui_ , there, God I’m—”

“Is it humanly possible for the two of you to keep that down? Some of us are trying to work.”

Greg freezes, then runs a hand over his face and groans even as John throws back his head and laughs. The beautiful sound of it fills the room—a sound which has been ached for, longed for, missing for three impossible months.

Greg lets himself be pulled gently down onto John’s chest, still deliciously warm and aching through his groin, and John’s own flushed erection presses into his stomach and hip. They both pant for breath as John flings up a hand to try and knock the glasses from Sherlock’s nose where he sits beside them on the king size bed. Sherlock ducks the blow by holding his iPad up in front of his face.

“Join in, then, if you’re so jealous,” John laughs.

Greg leans up on an elbow and frowns. “Hang on, _un moment_ , three bloody months I have been begging you to wear the glasses, and suddenly John is home for seven hours and you wear them?”

Sherlock shrugs, adjusting the lenses on the bridge of his nose. “I’ve no idea why you’re implying that John’s presence or absence somehow affects my desire to wear these ridiculous things, but I’ll have you know that the video quality of these practice runs on the course leaves much to be desired if you actually want to learn more than the fact that the flags are blue and red. And furthermore, as to your request, I’ve had intercourse twice over the last three months and a third time last night with you, so I hardly think you could accuse me of jealously wanting to join in now.”

John’s smile falls away, and he turns his head to give Greg an odd look. “Look, I know he’s just being a dick, but you two only . . .?”

Greg clears his throat, and his gaze flickers to Sherlock, already hunched back over the iPad pretending to research the course even as an odd blush spreads up the back of his neck. Greg would find it endearing, would tease him and pinch one of his cheeks, if only Greg didn’t damn well know that Sherlock’s blush has everything to do with the fact that neither of them had even stayed hard those two times—neither of which had even happened anywhere near a bed. 

Greg leans over and puts a brief hand on Sherlock’s thigh through the sheet. “You know how it is,” he says, half at John and half at the far wall. “Hardly have had a moment to breathe outside the training and the prep until we got here a few days ago.”

“‘Hardly have had a moment to breathe outside the training,’” Sherlock parrots, perfectly imitating the lilt of his accent. “And whose bloody fault is that, exactly?”

Greg curses under his breath, and silently revels in the shiver it sends across John’s skin. “It’s _yours, imbécile_ , since you practically demanded to me that I, and I quote, ‘just figure out how to make everyone else lose so you will win the Gold.’”

Sherlock presses ‘play’ again on the Jeongseon run-through video, this time with the sound obnoxiously on. “I’ve no memory of that exchange. And making everyone else lose is a distinctly different directive than ‘run my arse into the ground.’”

John sighs, then pulls Greg closer in his arms and suggestively runs a hand down his side, dipping over his hip and down his lower back. He grumbles at Sherlock over Greg’s shoulder. “Christ, weeks of telling myself I missed hearing your voice, and now I’ve heard it for five minutes and I’m already regretting all my life choices.”

Greg chuckles through his nose as he allows himself to be held, to melt into the smooth planes and soft hair of John’s slowly breathing chest. Allows himself the luxury of lying back in someone else’s arms, instead of doing the holding. 

Sherlock’s silence is telling, even as the crunching slice of skis echoes through the room from the training run. Greg knows Sherlock isn’t taking in a single second of that video—that he and Sherlock are both sitting there silently thinking that those two times Sherlock mentioned were nothing like this, not soft and heavy and lazy in a well slept-in bed, but frantic, all excess adrenaline and nerves, the training center shower room corners late at night where Greg was momentarily eighteen again and not twenty years older, with “Coach” before his name and a bad knee and no new racing skis. He knows they’re both thinking about how neither of them ever really came.

And that they had both missed John, in such a terrifying amount that it couldn’t even be expressed out loud. Never would be.

“You know, I thought France was supposed to be all romantic,” John goes on, seemingly oblivious to the tense silence as he groans and stretches out his legs and spine. The sound of it shoots straight down between Greg’s thighs, prickling the hair on his lower back and rushing warmth through his softening cock. John sighs. “And you two come back from people’s honeymooning spot all tense and bickering when we’re finally all in the same bed for the first time in months.”

Sherlock snorts. “What, and is that supposed to be some sort of siren’s call for my cock? Have three bodies in the same bed and instantly grow hard?”

John smirks and glances down at Sherlock’s groin hidden under the sheet. “It sure seemed like a siren’s call to you last night.”

“Greg wasn’t even awake.”

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t count.”

“Speaking of which, Greg needs to have his hearing checked. There’s absolutely no way a man in good health could have slept through your—”

“ _Alright_ I’m sure he gets the picture—”

“—through your _scream_ when I let you come down my throat.”

“Oh, bloody nice, Sherlock, I’m sure Greg appreciates thinking about that at six in the morning.”

“Well _you’re_ the one who couldn’t even let the man use the loo or eat breakfast before jumping on him the second you woke up.”

“ _Jumping_ on him? Christ, you make me sound like some sort of anima—”

“ _Allô?_ ” Greg pushes himself up onto one elbow. “Does anyone realize that I am actually sitting right here?”

Sherlock squints his eyes and mutters, “You’re not sitting. You’re lying down,” just as John cups Greg’s face in his hand, and gazes at him with warm eyes, and whispers, “Yes. I realize.” The kiss John gives him is so soft, so melting and wet, that Greg has a momentary sadness for all the people on earth who die without being kissed like that. Without being kissed like that by John Watson. 

Then he wonders how in hell the only other person on earth to claim that privilege ended up being the dickhead cranking up the volume on his training video next to them. 

John sighs into his mouth, tracing Greg’s lips with his tongue as soft moans drip across his deep breaths. John pulls back from him after pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then idly rubs Greg’s nipple with his thumb as he looks over at Sherlock. 

“Wanna see if he can hear me make that sound now?” John asks, in a rough voice that instantly makes Greg wrap his arms around John’s back, holding the breadth of John’s ribs as close to his body as possible as he tries not to start rutting against him on the spot.

But Sherlock only glances at them before he rolls his eyes and turns back to the iPad. “I told you, I’m not interested. I’m busy preparing for the Olympics, which is happening in four days. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

John huffs, looks like he’s gonna say something back, then gives up and turns to hold Greg’s face in his hands instead. Greg holds his breath at the quiet rasp of John’s fingers stroking across his morning stubble.

“Did you see your family when you were there?” John asks, even though the tone of his voice sounds like he already knows the answer—the unbearably deep line between his brows.

Greg knows it’s too late to hide the flash of emotion across his face. “ _Non_ ,” he whispers. “I asked of them, but . . .”

John breathes through his nose and stares into him for a quiet moment, the same way he seemed to stare straight through to Greg’s heart on a unassuming ski lift all those years ago.

John licks his lips to speak, a sinking flatness in his eyes and a not-very-reassuring weak smile on his lips, when Greg quietly cuts him off. “Don’t say it.”

John raises an eyebrow. “What was I gonna say, then, huh?”

Something in Greg’s chest melts at the warmth in John’s voice. “You were going to smile sadly at me, to pout your lip, and say, ‘oh, they will come around.’”

John huffs a laugh. “I’m that predictable?”

“ _Bien sûr_. You know you have been saying that same thing forever now, J?”

John’s eyes brighten at the unexpected, old nickname. “Oh, have I?” he asks.

Greg nods, fake-seriously. “You have.” He runs his fingertips up John’s stomach and chest, an unspoken plea to let it be, to save it for later. Silently wishing John to somehow just _know_ that Greg can’t bear to think of his last conversation with his mother while he has a naked John Watson in his arms. Or ever. 

John does know; he plays along. “Well, there’s a lot of things I’ve been saying forever,” he says, breathless as Greg traces shivers over his skin.

Greg rubs his palms over John’s waist, running up the toned lines of his stomach, flicking once at the rings in his nipples as John gasps. “Like what?”

John’s voice is rough as a groan catches in his throat. “Like how I love watching you ski.”

Greg drags his tongue up the web of scarring over John’s shoulder, huffing wet breath over the places he knows John can feel as hot tingles working their way through the numb skin. “And what else?”

John grunts. “And we need to get the top two stairs up to this flat replaced.”

“Mmm, _et quoi d’autre?_ ” Greg licks a wet stripe up John’s neck. 

“Fuck. And how you need to fucking get on with it and fuck me.”

Heat surges through Greg’s thighs, even as he chuckles. He surrounds one of the rings on John’s nipples with his tongue, moaning at the cool slide of silver across his lips. “ _Et_?” he breathes.

“God, I need . . .” John pants, “Shit, come on . . .Get on me . . .” 

And Greg throws himself down across John’s chest, holding him impossibly close, heartbeat to heartbeat, catching the rough words on John’s lips with his open mouth, when:

“Oh, please, do carry on. I’m not doing anything important at all, and I have full faith that you both can somehow manage to keep your animal grunting to a minimu—”

The words die in Sherlock’s throat with a sudden rush of air. Greg lifts his head to see John’s palm slipped under the sheets, cupped between Sherlock’s legs. The fabric rustles as he moves, stroking.

“Don’t seem that uninterested to me,” John rumbles, smirking, and the hairs on the back of Greg’s neck stand up as the sheet starts to rise with Sherlock’s swelling erection. As the mattress squeaks with the squirming of his hips, and the soft light dances across the rapid rise and fall of his smooth, bare chest.

Sherlock’s head thumps back against the wall, even as his hands still grip the iPad—the screen his eyes have been glued to nearly twenty-four-seven since they touched back down in London from France three days before.

And Greg remembers now how he had shaken his head, decreed the trip to London a complete waste of money and time—just one of Sherlock’s mad ideas with no real purpose other than to make things a thousand times more difficult than necessary. Greg had thought that, quite vocally, and about once every hour on the trip back, until he’d set foot inside their barely-used flat for the first time in months, and smelled the lingering wisps of three different brands of deodorant in the air, and seen one of John’s favorite jumpers hanging off the back of his chair. That photo of the three of them standing arm-in-arm in the snow from their ski trip last winter.

And he’d had to swallow down a sudden lump in his throat when Sherlock came up behind him, dropping their bags to the floor, and wrapped him tightly in his long arms. When Sherlock whispered to him in a small voice that he just needed them all to be home, all three in their bed, even for one single night. Whispered to him in a way he hadn’t done in what felt like lifetimes.

Then, Greg had finally understood.

He reaches his hand up now, stretching over John’s chest, and gently lowers the iPad screen with two of his fingers. “ _Allez viens_ , love,” he whispers, in a voice so night-and-day from how the entire world has seen Coach Lestrade talk to Alpine Skier Sherlock Holmes that it takes even himself by surprise, even after years.

Sherlock looks down at them for a silent moment. His eyes are clear and young—nothing like the sharp lasers of focus that Greg knows are safely behind his goggles when he barrels down a course, or the fierce slits of determination that Greg’s seen broadcast on countless grandstand screens, countless televisions, in the final moments before he steps up to the gate and secures his gear.

Finally, Sherlock’s lips soften.

John lets out a sigh, half pleasure, half exasperation, as Sherlock presses pause on the video, drops his glasses and iPad haphazardly onto the floor, and scoots towards them in the bed, not even wincing at the clattering of the screen on the hardwood. 

The constriction that had been sitting tightly in Greg’s chest since Sherlock opened his mouth and said “two times” finally starts to evaporate, and he goes to lie back down along John’s side when Sherlock’s hand quickly shoots out and catches his cheek. Greg freezes, a small frown on his face, as Sherlock holds him steady, then leans across John’s chest so he can give him a kiss.

And Christ, the fact that he even gets to _kiss_ him, this firecracker, this shooting star of a man, this impossible, unbeatable, unbelievable—

Greg starts to pull away after a quick peck—the usual fare. The almost second-nature little reminder of a mutual like beneath the practices and the sweat and the interviews and the skis. But Sherlock’s hand wraps around the back of his neck, holding him closer, and he deepens the kiss, pressing his tongue between Greg’s lips with a tiny moan.

Greg sucks in a surprised breath. The kiss floods through his chest, tingling just behind his sternum with something that feels like disbelieving relief. Because Sherlock’s lips are slow, when for weeks they’ve been hard and quick. He’s caressing Greg’s mouth instead of just pressing against it, tasting him with his lips instead of quickly hurrying away—straight onto the next mountain, the next slope, the next goal. 

And a few years of kissing Sherlock Holmes have taught Greg how to read the hidden words in his shy tongue. The _thank you_ hovering silently just behind his lips. The thank you for the punishing days, and the long hours, and the sleepless nights, and the endless work. The thank you for running his arse into the ground.

The thank you for doing the work that will never again lead to Greg bending to receive a medal around his own neck.

Greg threads his fingers through locks of tangled curls, even as warm water builds in the corners of his eyes. He can feel John’s gentle palm rubbing his ribs and side.

He kisses back, fiercely, _pour toi, love, for you,_ even as his bad knee twinges beneath the sheets, and his eyes sting.

John suddenly moans beneath them. His hands come up to cup both of their necks. “God, am I a lucky bastard,” he whispers, right before he pulls each of them down for a wet kiss in turn.

Greg watches the soft brush of Sherlock’s lips against John’s, hears John’s small hum, and he fights with himself the way he always does whenever John looks at them both and says that he’s lucky—wars with himself not to open his mouth and cry out that John Watson has only ever been _unlucky,_ has lived through the epitome of unfair, is stronger than all of them combined, and how can it possibly be that this man somehow feels lucky? Here, in a secret bed, between secret sheets? 

With them?

Sherlock catches Greg’s eye knowingly; he’s thinking the same thing, unless Greg has entirely forgotten how to read the frown lines around Sherlock’s full lips, or the shadow across his eyes. Greg gives Sherlock a nearly invisible nod, even as he brushes his thumb across John’s jaw, and they share a quick, deep look which he wonders if John is pretending not to see.

John’s hand breaks their gaze. “Look at you,” John whispers as he pulls Sherlock down and kisses his forehead, his cheek. “I missed you. And look at you,” John breathes as Greg’s hand cradles the half-hard warmth of John’s cock, pushing down the sheets so he can feel his erection slowly thickening in his hand.

And God, he’s missed the sounds of the three of them together in this room, echoing around these very four walls. He’s missed watching Sherlock’s eyes rapidly catalog every one of John’s breaths, missed their limbs all tangling with one another with slick sweat, missed being caught between the brightest, fiery star and the world’s most solid anchor, missed—

“My man,” John whispers to him, clutching at his short hair while Greg strokes him the way he likes, quick with a hard twist at the tip. Strong.

Sherlock’s wet lips travel across John’s chest, catching on a nipple ring and giving a hard tug with his teeth, before his tongue suddenly snakes its way around Greg’s ear. Shivers erupt across his skin, crackling and bold. Sherlock’s body is shaking from John’s hand tugging at his curls, and his rare erection rolls against John’s hip to the grunting rhythm of Greg’s soft moans.

Greg nearly bites his own tongue when the precious word escapes Sherlock’s lips, the one Greg’s only heard a treasured handful of times since that one fateful practice, that night that started it all . . .

“ _Gregory_ ,” Sherlock breathes into his ear, like silken, melted French. “Get him off.” He licks straight into Greg’s ear, sighing with his wet tongue. Greg’s pumping fist flies over John’s bobbing cock, slapping wetly across the pulsing skin, and Sherlock trails his fingertips down Greg’s shaking back before gripping the muscle of John’s rolling, panting chest. 

“Make him come,” Sherlock whispers. He sucks Greg’s earlobe between his wet lips. “Make him _come_. . .”

And John’s thick cock is heavy and dripping in Greg’s hand, and the mattress is shaking with the force of Sherlock’s deep, rolling thrusts against John’s thigh, and in that exact moment, John curses under his breath, throws back his sweat-shining head onto the pillow, and comes in Greg’s eager hand in a groaning, hot stream. And Greg idly thinks that it might be the most beautiful cum he’s ever seen as he bends his head to lick it up from John’s belly and thighs, and as Sherlock crawls right under him where he kneels on his knees and sucks Greg’s bobbing cock straight into his mouth, strong fingers gripping the back of Greg’s thighs as he swallows.

One more breathless orgasm later, and one thoroughly long, lazy snog between Sherlock and them both—Sherlock, who claimed he needed to “conserve his energy from wasting it on something useless like an orgasm,” and whom Greg noticed had actually long gone soft—after all three of them take in a deep inhale and satisfactorily sigh, there is a quick wiping of somebody’s shirt across wet skin. Three bodies pile up in a breathing heap across sweat damp sheets, surrounded by three colors of hair strewn across the white pillows.

And Greg can almost fool himself into believing that everything is about to go back to normal—whatever normal even means for three Olympic skiers. Well, _two_ Olympic skiers, and one . . . whatever he is. He watches John drift back off into a morning nap, and Sherlock once again locks his eyes onto the miraculously-not-cracked iPad screen, still curled up against John’s side with his head on his sleeping chest. 

Greg can almost believe, tracing the shadows of their naked bodies wound together, that they’re just going to spend the next few weeks doing what normal people do. That they’ll be grocery shopping, and chatting, and watching Olympics coverage, and having sex in the middle of the afternoon before drinking over-steeped tea. That the two gorgeous, quiet men sprawled around him in their private flat aren’t about to be up on the world stage for a whole month, to be at the Olympics, across every newspaper and television, fighting tooth and nail for an exact copy of one of the four Gold medals already hanging on an unassuming peg in the darkest corner of their living room.

And Greg can almost fool himself into believing that he won’t be on the sidelines for the first time in his life. That he won’t be growing soft around his middle beneath the puffy layers of his coach’s jacket, and awkwardly waving at old fans mixed with people who have absolutely no idea who he is, and popping Tylenol for his screaming knee. That he won’t be secretly wishing, fiercely, madly, _desperately_ wishing, that he could be out there flying down the mountain on skis with these two gorgeous, quiet men instead.

He’s still trying to fool himself when he falls back into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French shit (Note: I'll only include new phrases each chapter in the notes):
> 
> pour l’amour du ciel : for the love of Christ  
> merde : shit  
> putain : fuck (better get used to these ...)  
> mon dieu : God / my God (as an exclamation)  
> superstar : superstar, but with a sweet accent!  
> bordel : goddammit  
> tu m’as manqué : I missed you  
> imbécile : moron  
> bien sûr : of course  
> et quoi d’autre? : and what else?  
> et : and  
> allez / allez viens : come on  
> oui : yes  
> ouais : yeah
> 
> Things are starting to get interesting, yay! Thank you for reading :) 
> 
> Next time: It's not all rainbows and butterflies with the three of them in their flat for a blessed 24 hours . . . Plus they gotta catch a flight to Korea!


	3. What You Want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings! Thanks for returning. A few quick notes before you start:
> 
> -Here's my (final) reminder that the dates and times are listed at the top of each chapter! These will be hugely helpful, especially going forward once we get to the Olympics and events. The time will be important. Hint hint.  
> -Enjoy your John-related answers! Some of them, at least.  
> -In case you don't know already, you need to know before you read that the Paralympics is usually held about a month *after* the Olympics as a completely separate event. As you might (unfortunately) expect, it's not nearly as attended or televised, and the host country often has to build separate courses, facilities (both depending on the sport) and accommodations for Paralympians. There is also an enormous funding gap between the two, for both the event itself and for the athletes (in terms of gear, coaching, sponsorships, etc.). You'll see the big changes I've made to this existing system in the chapter below.
> 
> Listen to "What You Want" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZuzcWVBMPU/)
> 
> Enjoy!

_5 February 2018, 2:34 p.m._

 

  
“I’m sorry, Greg, I wasn’t aware you’d been awarded four Gold medals in the sport of ‘slowest human being on the planet’—my sincerest congratulations!”

Greg rolls his eyes and curses from the living room as he finishes re-inventorying their gear bags for the fifth time, sweating that he’s going to somehow forget every pair of skis, or half their poles, or their clothes, or every one of John’s carefully labelled boxes of ammunition. He grips the wrinkled, water-damaged, laminated page in his hand where he’d finally written out his full gear checklist two Olympics ago, pretending not to be at all bothered by the fact that none of the gear on the list is going in a bag for him. 

“Do something useful for a change and gather together the paperwork with the passports!” he calls up to Sherlock, who sounds like he’s allowing a pack of bulls to run through the upstairs bedroom-turned-office.

“Considering you’ve done this five bloody times before, it’s horrifying that you haven’t got a better preparation system than finding the passports three hours before the flight!”

“Does he really not remember where I . . .?” Greg mutters to himself, before cutting himself off and yelling back up the stairs, “Ah, _sans déconner_? Spoken as if you have not already done this two times yourself!”

“The second time didn’t exactly _count_ , unless you’ve somehow forgotten the inciting incident behind the start of our entire relationship!”

Greg’s just opening his mouth to shout something equally as irritating back when he hears an unexpected noise behind him, a thudding tap-tap on the wooden floor coming from the bedroom.

“Sherlock, swear to God,” he hears John hiss under his breath.

Greg frowns where he’s kneeling over the bags as John pauses in the bedroom doorway, exasperation written all over his face. His tracksuit pantleg flutters emptily where it drags across the floor, and Greg notices the shaking in his hands as he grips the rarely-used forearm crutches.

“Sherlock has it? Was it hurting you today?” Greg asks under his breath.

John shakes his head and takes a deep breath up at the ceiling. Greg can practically see the anger slowly dissipating from his limbs as he exhales.

“No,” John finally says, calmer now, softly so Sherlock can’t possibly hear from upstairs. “It’s called ‘Sherlock’s terrified and panicking but refuses to admit it so we can help, and so he packed everything in sight to have something to do with his bloody hands, which included my bloody leg when I was stretching.’”

Greg sighs and turns to call up the narrow stairwell. “Sherlock! _Sers-toi de ta tête_ — forgetting something?”

“I’m forgetting how bloody irritating you can be at actually _mobilizing_!” comes the distracted shout from upstairs. “What will your adoring public think when they find out it takes Super-Greg _two hours_ to inventory a bag?”

Greg runs a hand over his face and groans, and he hears John take in a carefully controlled breath next to him.

“Swear to God,” John mutters again. “Some days I think he’s really an eight year old who added an extra two decades to his ID. Makes me feel like a grandad trying to get him to eat his peas.”

Greg slowly turns back to the gear in Sherlock’s bag, running his hands over the cleaned, packed skis and shifting some of his weight off his knee. He huffs. “Ah, _ouais_? And how do you think I feel? I am even older than you. And I lose my job unless I keep telling him what to do.”

John half-chuckles through his nose. “Well, at least you’re getting paid for it.” He swings the crutch out to tap Greg’s shoulder. “And you’re not that old.”

Greg checks John’s ammunition for the eighth time, knowing that John is watching him do it. “ _Peut-être que tu as raison_ ,” he says with a tilt of his head.

John frowns. “I have . . . raisin?”

Greg shakes his head just as another mighty crash from upstairs signifies Sherlock has now overturned the file cabinet searching for the passports which Greg knows are sitting in a perfect stack on the kitchen counter, exactly where he left them the night before while looking Sherlock dead in the eye and _commanding_ him to look at where he was pointing so Sherlock wouldn’t forget them the next day, or cover them in random shit in the middle of the night.

Greg smiles down at his hands. “ _Raison_ , J. Means you are right. You have got a point. About me not being that ancient.”

"Now I feel like an idiot for not knowing that word before."

Greg laughs. "You see now, that is not your fault. It is because I don't ever think I have said anyone is _right_ in this household ever before. Probably it is the first time you have heard it."

John smirks back, wincing at another curse from upstairs, then looks suddenly lost in thought. 

“But you didn't say I was right. About you and Sherlock. You said maybe.”

“ _Oui_ , I said maybe.”

John hums. “You haven’t called me that in a long time, you know,” he whispers. “J.”

Greg shrugs, feeling somehow caught out over nothing, and he hopes there isn’t any visible blush spreading across his cheeks. “Like I said,” he says, as casually as he can as he finally folds up the list and sticks it in his back pocket. “ _Tu m’as manqué._ ” He sits back and rubs his palms on the knees of his jeans. “ _C’est tout._ ”

John takes a careful step closer, and the flat suddenly feels incredibly quiet and small. “Greg,” he says, hesitating on the word. “Look, I know you’re just taking the piss about Sherlock—about telling him what to do and all that—but still . . . you know you’re not just his—” 

Another crash cuts John off mid-sentence, followed by a royal string of curses in English and French raining down through the ceiling. There’s an odd tension radiating from John where he stands in the doorway, and Greg can feel through the creaking floor the way John’s shifting his weight awkwardly between his foot and the crutches.

For some reason, Greg immediately feels it’s imperative that he change the subject before John finishes whatever he was going to say. Greg speaks down at his hands, keeping his voice light, “Well, his issues aside . . .” He glances up at the ceiling, then quickly at John. “ _Et toi?_ " 

"And me what?"

" _Et toi, ça va? Pas trop nerveux?_." Greg suddenly remembers who he's speaking to, as if he could have possibly forgotten, and he fights down a wash of embarrassment. "Sorry—I mean, not too terrified? Not nervous?”

He means it as a joke—he’s not sure the word “nervous” is even a part of John Watson’s life experience. He waits for John to laugh, to say, ‘ _Of course not, why would I be nervous and terrified? It’s just one more race. It’s just one more target. Sherlock is the one who can’t handle a teensy bit of stress and panics. Not me_.’ 

But instead, to his surprise, John waits for Greg to look up at him before giving a deeply serious nod.

“Course I’m nervous,” he says in a half-whisper, and Greg carefully keeps his gaze away from John’s shaking hand. “And I _am_ terrified. It’s the . . . I mean, it’s the fucking Oly—Paralympics. I just can’t let that out right now when I’m busy dealing with—”

He holds up a hand just as Sherlock barges down the stairs with crashing thuds, shirt half-unbuttoned, curls in a complete riot, and the prosthesis gripped in his hand raised up over his head.

“Sorry! Sorry, have it here,” he says, panting a bit.

John immediately lurches forward to take it from him, nearly toppling over on Greg while trying to juggle the crutch on his arm. “Jesus, don’t just wave around thousands of pounds in the air like that! My heart can’t take it today.”

Greg’s senses alert him that Sherlock’s about to open his big mouth, probably to say something along the lines that it wasn’t actually _John’s_ thousands of pounds, but rather some boring dead ancestor of the Holmes family’s, but one sharp look from Greg promptly shuts Sherlock’s jaw.

They don’t have time for that argument again today, and, more than that, Sherlock bloody well knows John doesn’t deserve it.

But Sherlock still opens his big mouth again, and he says something a little better, if only mildly. As if the reckless, impossible, _salaud_ can’t even enter a room without hearing the sound of his own voice fill it. “In my defense, John should keep a closer eye on the literal _one_ item he can’t just replace in Korea. And the packing would be significantly easier if we weren’t having to account for the gear of _two_ athletes in one house trying to leave on the same day.”

John gives a sharp laugh. “Oh, yeah, God forbid we do anything simple around here. And in case you haven’t noticed in the middle of all your quality time spent surrounded by gates and snow and no other human beings, there are actually _three_ athletes in this house, not two.”

Greg’s throat briefly burns as John sends a careful look his way—both at the fact that John is still consciously thinking of him that way, as well as the fact that John apparently felt the need to say it out loud in the first place. As if everyone else in the room had already forgotten. Even Greg.

He twists a small smile on his lips, a silent thank you, and ignores the fact that his face burns with shame and embarrassment that he’s been so absolutely transparent. That, of course, even in the span of half a day, John saw.

Sherlock sighs, oblivious to their silent communication where he squints down at the bags, and runs a hand through his half-dry curls. The hair on the back of Greg’s neck suddenly prickles, a crackling wave of dangerous electricity through the air.

“You know what I mean,” Sherlock huffs, waving his hand at the piles of gear. “If they’d just kept things the way they were we wouldn’t be having to do all this at once, all in the same bloody days. It’s like the IOC is _asking_ for a logistical nightmare, on top of everything else they already screw up on a consistent basis.”

_Putain._ Goddamn him. 

Greg looks to John, who’s standing absolutely still, hands no longer shaking, chin subtly raised.

John’s chest barely moves as he breathes. “And what exactly are you implying by that?”

Sherlock’s eyes go wide with exasperation. “Oh, come on, John, don’t give me that. Everyone on earth knows this is a terrible idea, mashing the Olympics and all of you back to back—”

“And ‘all of _you_ ’? Seriously? Fuck, Sherlock, are you even hearing yourself?”

“It doesn’t make any logical sense! The Closing Ceremony mashed with your Opening? Half the events overlapping? Building two versions of half the courses at once? A Village nearly twice as large as it needed to be? Everything was absolutely reasonable before and now they’ve gone and jumbled it all up in some misguided attempt at global athletic _unity_ , like that could ever bloody exist.”

The following silence is so dense Greg can hear the blood rush through his own ears.

John blinks, and his jaw moves, and _ah_ , there’s the spark. 

John’s hand clenches so hard around the grip of the crutch that his knuckles turn white. A cold bead of sweat drips down Greg’s side under his old Sochi Team France t-shirt with the hole in the sleeve. He wonders if he stood up and did jumping jacks right now if John and Sherlock would even realize he’s still in the room. Then he remembers that he can’t really stand up and do jumping jacks without his knee screaming murder on the plane in three hours. So he guesses he’ll never know.

“Yeah,” John says, entirely too calm. “Yeah, you know what, Sherlock? You’re right. Just like you’re always right. God forbid they don’t keep the Olympics separate, you know, how they _should_ be, with all of you getting the normal crowds and excitement and all of us getting the scraps a whole bloody month later. God forbid anyone should actually _televise_ what I do. Or be there to _cheer_ for it. God forbid the three of us should get to actually experience this together, as a team, as a . . . as a family. God forbid they don’t try and give ‘all of us’ a chance to experience it the way you can, because—”

“Alright, John, Christ, this lecture will make us late for the flight. You know that’s not at all what I meant, if you’d just think about something before gut-reacting. You honestly think _I_ don’t want you to be there with us?”

“It’s shockingly difficult for me to answer that question right now. I mean, what the hell is wrong with you that you can’t just think of how something will sound before you start spewing your fucking logic everywh—”

“I get it. I’m selfish and uncaring and horrible and the villain just because I don’t want the Olympics to turn into a giant illogical circus of poor preparation, ruining _both_ our chances at Gold. You can give me the rest of your thoughts when when I’ve had a martini on the plane.”

“You don’t drink martinis,” John shoots back.

“I might start, if I have to hear about—”

“ _Arrêtez._ ”

Greg holds up both hands, immediately silencing them both, and the sound of everyone’s harsh breathing echoes through the room. Greg’s chest aches for a moment when he remembers how just a few hours ago he’d been longing for that collective breathing, their mixed sighs, the power of everyone’s lungs in the warm, safe bed.

Now they cut through the air like angry saws. For the longest thirty seconds of Greg’s life—longer even than when he stood at the starting gate waiting to get his taste of the Nagano mountain his first Olympics—he waits. He still kneels on the floor, the harsh wood cutting straight into his throbbing bone, and he looks between the two tense men who’d been naked and soft and warmly curled up against him only that morning.

Sherlock finally puts his hands on his hips and dips his head. He bites his lip in the silence, and it looks like an admission of surrender. Greg holds in a sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock finally says, glazed eyes flicking up to John’s clenched jaw. “That was uncalled for, and unfair. I’m anxious and cruelly taking it out on you.”

Greg’s eyebrows climb halfway up to his hairline. He and Sherlock have cursed each other to hell more times than he can count, but he’s never heard Sherlock apologize like that in his life. Not even close.

John doesn’t look nearly so grateful. He just gives a tight nod.

Greg lowers his hands, zips both the giant Team France and Team Great Britain gear bags covering half the floor and pushes himself to his feet, wincing at the sudden sharp twang in his knee. Sherlock notices, he knows, but doesn’t say anything. They don’t have time for that argument again today, either.

“ _Bon_ ,” Greg says in the fragile silence, rubbing his hands. “Bags are packed, inventory is okay. Should be ready to leave once Sherlock remembers I have stacked the passports on the kitchen counter last night.” 

Sherlock huffs. “Oh great, a bloody _lesson_ before we head out, how charming . . .”

Greg ignores him and casually holds out a hand, intending to help John sit back on the bed so he can get his leg sorted. “Here, J, let me—”

“Yeah, I’ve fucking got it,” John snaps, flinching away. 

Greg immediately steps back and holds up his hands in surrender. The nearly-warm-again air in the room turns to ice. Sherlock freezes halfway to the kitchen mid-stride.

John takes two unsteady steps away using his crutches, uncharacteristically struggling to carry the limb under his arm as he does, then immediately stops in his tracks and stares down at his foot. The line of his spine looks painfully tense. Greg wants to smooth it out with his palms. His lips.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” John finally breathes. He doesn’t look up at them as he speaks, but stares across at the wall, shaking his head. “It’s just . . . it’s not . . . well, you know, it’s not you, either of you, it’s—”

He lifts one hand and waves it around, swinging the crutch through the air. It quietly encompasses the passports, and the skis, and the three different types of prosthetic leg packed in his gear bag, and the folded over packet of papers by the front door. The papers that say, in huge, bold letters, “Class - LW 2 - Above-knee Amputation” in a font three times bigger than the “John H. Watson” printed just above it.

A soft sound escapes John’s throat. The crutch in his hand thuds back to its place against the floor.

“ _Je sais_ , John,” Greg says, as softly as he can, wondering if he really _does_ know. Then, more boldly, with a glance at Sherlock. “We know.”

John hesitantly looks over at them, and Greg’s heart aches at the sharp flash of shame he sees in John’s eyes. The same look Sherlock had once whispered about to Greg in the middle of the night, the day before it all happened, before everything became beautiful and full and new, and before the two of them had held John Watson in between them and kissed him for the very first time (well, before Sherlock had kissed him for the very first time . . .). 

And the look on John’s face now is the very same look which Sherlock had fiercely asserted he never wanted to see in John’s eyes ever again as Greg held him in the dark, right before Greg finally opened his mouth to try and say that he found himself in the terrifying predicament of loving two people at once, wondering how many seconds would pass before Sherlock leapt up from the bed and left him for good. If he would send someone else to collect all his stuff in the morning, or if he would cut his losses.

They had both kissed a shame and anger-less John only twenty-four hours later.

And yet . . . that shame and anger burn brightly in John’s eyes where he stands hunched over in the doorway, mixed with something like churning fear, and it makes Greg have to clench his fists so he doesn’t reach out to try and smooth it all away.

Sherlock does reach out, though. He steps forward in the thick silence and casually takes the limb out from under John’s arm, as if they hadn’t even been yelling at each other thirty seconds before. He waits until John’s comfortably seated on the edge of the bed to hand it back.

Greg watches them from the doorway, heart torn between relief and that terrible gnawing feeling that the two of them work so seamlessly together—so cleanly, like perfectly sanded edges without any rips or tears. That gnawing feeling that John never snaps whenever Sherlock casually offers to help him stand, or guides him to a chair, or asks if he wants someone to massage the muscles in his leg. That Sherlock is the only one ever allowed to sink to his knees before John, and gently pull on the protective sock, and carefully fit his stump into the socket. That even though John has practically never needed help for a second of his life, he still lets Sherlock do it.

Asks him to do it, even.

And Greg knows the exact reason why, without even having to be told. Because Sherlock’s only ever known John with a right leg that reaches barely halfway down his thigh. He’s only ever seen him with a knee made of metal, one with, eventually, a hidden skull and two sets of initials painted into the joint. He’s never seen John stand on two feet of muscle and bone.

Unlike Greg.

“Greg?”

He blinks out of his thoughts to see the two of them standing now in the center of the living room, Sherlock with his gear bag slung over his shoulder, shirt fully buttoned up, curls styled, and John beside him on two feet, his track pants covering the prosthesis down to his shoe.

And they look so handsome together, so capable, so beautiful, and they’re on their way to the _Olympics_ , and Greg swallows hard over the realization that they will never again stand in their favorite room like this—just the three of them, before everything, the way it’s always been.

“Yes, Greg, the next time we all stand in this room you won’t be the only Olympic medalist, what an original thought.”

John elbows Sherlock in the ribs. “Christ, don’t jinx it!”

Greg shakes his head and forces a laugh, then stoops to pick up his and John’s bags, giving himself a moment to re-compose. When he looks back up at them, he puts on what he now knows is his Coach Face, and Sherlock’s spine straightens in an involuntary response.

“I believe him,” Greg says to them both with a serious nod.

John blinks quickly, and Sherlock’s chest imperceptibly swells with pride.

They slowly drag their stuff to the top of the stairs, looking down towards the front door, towards the street, towards the waiting cab, towards the rest of their lives. And Greg refuses to wonder why he’s gone to the Olympics five times already and still hasn’t seemed to find the rest of _his_ life. Why all he’s done is come out lost, drifting, useless, no longer a skie—

“Well,” John says, clearing his throat.

On unspoken agreement, they all pause on the landing. Nearly thirty seconds pass in silence, three chests breathing.

“I’ve had my brother check outside,” Sherlock finally murmurs. “There’s nobody out there, no cameras. It appears Super-Greg’s fans don’t realize he’s been here in London instead of France for three days.”

Sherlock’s partially joking, he knows, and yet Greg is ashamed at the overwhelming wave of relief that floods though his system—that ever-present terror that one day a camera will catch him looking at Sherlock Holmes with more than just Coach showing in his eyes.That someone will finally ask why they’re usually driven away from practices and press events in the same car. That someone will purchase a gigantic telescope and zoom straight through the thin walls of their flat to glimpse them together in bed, with another man in between them.

“So, how are we explaining me?” John asks. “At the airport? Somebody’s sure to notice our Team Bags. Someone’ll probably recognize Greg—” 

“Someone _always_ recognizes Greg.”

“—and _you_. Doesn’t make any sense why you both would have a Team Great Britain Paralympic athl—”

“Olympian,” Sherlock interrupts. “Plus nobody will even notice your leg.”

John huffs. “Yes, they will. But fine, another _athlete_ showing up with you in an airport terminal . . .”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “You live off-season in the same neighborhood and we ran into you on our way to the airport. I had to be back in London to resolve a passport issue and dragged my coach along, because I’m a high-maintenance snob. Athletes all over the world are traveling today; I doubt we’ll even be the only ones at Heathrow this afternoon. You somehow know Greg from old skiing stuff and Greg forced me to go along and be sociable and let you share our cab. I think you have the capacity to make it up from there.”

John fake glares at him, and Sherlock shrugs. “What? It’s not entirely a lie.”

John tips his head and looks back down the stairs. “It’s about ninety-five percent a lie,” he mutters, but he doesn’t argue. 

Greg suddenly wonders if the two of them are right—if anybody will even recognize him outside of France, especially in the chaotic jumble of Heathrow. He passingly hopes that nobody will spare him a second glance so that the three of them can relax together somewhat normally in the terminal. And then he wonders if people will recognize Sherlock, like John said. He wonders whether it will be residual staring from all the horrible press spewed across the internet surrounding Sochi, or whether it will instead be impressed skiing fans from the lesser-televised championships Greg’s been making him compete in to qualify for Pyeongchang these past four years. He wonders whether anybody would ever simply recognize Sherlock as the Silver from Vancouver.

Then he wonders if people will _only_ recognize Sherlock Holmes. If _nobody_ will recognize Greg Lestrade, in or out of France, and his reaction to that thought is so shamefully horrifying he nearly reels down the stairs, swallowing down a wave of self-disgust in his throat. 

And he’s already too nauseated to fully process the shattering thought that nobody would _ever_ recognize John Watson. Not in ten million years. 

Their feet all crowd on the top step in careful balance, the same way they’ve crowded there together on countless other off-season afternoons, but nobody moves.

“ _Alors_ ,” Greg says, nearly whispering as he looks down the stairs. He purposefully shakes out his shoulders as his gaze shifts to the two of them by his side. His mouth quirks at the corner. “Get down in one piece, _ouais_?”

John’s eyes glow warm at the old joke. He leans into the touch as Greg cups his cheek. “Too late. I can’t,” John says back, fighting a grin.

Greg moves his hand to swipe his thumb under Sherlock’s eye, who’s looking at him with a softness Greg so rarely sees he wants to take a picture of it to frame on the wall. 

Sherlock turns his face to kiss the tip of Greg’s thumb. “I’ll try,” he whispers.

The cab outside honks. Greg and Sherlock shake themselves from the spell and clomp down the stairs, hauling the bags of clothes and gear and skis and poles between them. Behind them, he hears John wait for a beat, clicking his limb into the stair mode before following slowly behind, step by careful step.

And Greg tries to quell the uneasiness in his gut as their flat door slams shut, to be opened again who knows how many months into the future. He tries to tell himself it’s just nerves, or excitement, or the lack of sleep. That he’s an anxious coach for Sherlock; a nervous, terrified onlooker for John.

And yet he knows, deep down, beneath all of these things, as the three of them try their best to look casual piling into a cab which will drive them to the most important month of their lives, that the churning in his gut is because the old pair of skis he brought along for himself aren’t meant for racing.

And because there’s the tiniest part of him, buried dark and deep, that wonders if all three of them will still be trying to crowd together at the top step of their London flat when this month is over.

Wonders whether they all didn’t just say _à dieu_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French shit:  
> sans déconner : oh really? / you don't say? (because I think we all have a sarcastic!French!Greg kink)  
> Sers-toi de ta tête : use your head  
> Peut-être que tu as raison : maybe you're right  
> c'est tout : that's all  
> Ça va? Pas trop nerveux? : You alright? Not too nervous?  
> salaud : bastard  
> Arrêtez : stop  
> Bon : right / okay  
> Je sais : I know  
> Alors : so  
> à dieu : goodbye
> 
> John is competing in the Paralympics in the sport of Biathlon, which is so wildly complicated to explain (especially for the Paralympics) that I will wait until it's absolutely necessary. For now, though, just know it consists of a cross-country skiing race (as opposed to Alpine / Downhill skiing, which Sherlock does) interspersed with shooting a gun at a target. Yes, that really is the sport. Much more info to come, and many more answers!
> 
> If you want to watch a semi-boring video about how Paralympic Biathlon works, you can try [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew4F_o2ZlYE/) *NOTE that this video mostly shows athletes sit-skiing (moniskiers), but John will be skiing standing upright using a prosthesis. You will not believe the amount of rules which go into these equipment determinations and Paralympic classes, some of which I am bending, and I'll explain much more later. 
> 
> Also, just in case there's any confusion, the Paralympic Games is *completely different* from the Special Olympics. The Paralympics is governed by the IPC (International Paralympic Committee, as opposed to the more recognizable IOC - International Olympic Committee). It is a major international sporting event similar in reach and caliber to the Olympics (these days, at least), but meant for athletes who have a physical disability (such as impaired muscle power, range of movement, limb deficiency, or vision impairment, to name a few). Meanwhile, the Special Olympics is a worldwide organization founded for both children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Different competitions and events are held year-round, so while they are recognized as an international sporting event by the IOC, they are *not* held in conjunction with the Olympics and Paralympics. Obviously all organizations are equally as wonderful, I just wanted to clarify what John is apart of up front!
> 
> Enthusiasm is my life blood! Drop me a line if you're so inclined - it's what keeps me writing! Ya'll are great! Long live Johnlockstrade!
> 
> Next time: We're in Korea! How is John Watson faring on his first day at the Olympics?


	4. Home By Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Thank you SO much for all the positive feedback so far!
> 
> Listen to "Home By Now" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mhHkEX028Q/)
> 
> Enjoy!

_7 February 2018, 12:15 pm_

 

Somehow, in some way, he fell asleep on the red-eye flight and woke up eleven hours later in a fantastically impossible dreamland where he’s standing in the middle of the bloody _Olympics_ , right next to a gear bag filled to bursting with his own guns and skis.

And somehow, in some way, even in this fantastically impossible dreamland, it’s _still_ too fucking cold.

But of course it’s cold. Nearly every day of his entire adult life has been cold, aside from that decade or so spent out in the middle of the smoking desert, and even then, at night, the way the cold wind would snarl across the shifting sands, and the ice would seem to drip down from the endless blankets of stars . . .

But he consciously _chose_ this life of standing around in cold places, didn’t he? He’d walked straight out of physical therapy after one particularly soul-crushing session and decided then and there to pick back up a bloody sport where the saying is practically ‘the colder the better.’ Saved up his disability checks for nearly a year just to buy a decent used monoski and adapted gear in the middle of mountain-less London.

And still, even now, the icy blast of air from a freezing slope never fails to whip straight through his thin tendons, chattering in his aging bones like a handful of loose screws dropped down onto a sheet of frozen metal.

John stands dumbly in the middle of the bustling chaos of the Olympic Village, holding tight to the strap of the bag over his shoulder and trying his best to look casually invisible. He steals periodic glances behind him at where Sherlock and Greg have already been pulled aside by the France24 team for an on-the-spot interview, hoping he just looks like a random athlete taking in the sights and not a star-struck stalker hoping for another autograph.

Because Christ, there’s already been so many autographs . . .

It started all the way back in London. They’d barely even taken a step out of the cab at Heathrow before they heard a chorus of, “ _Monsieur Lestrade! Monsieur Holmes! Super-Greg!_ ” and the camera lights started to flash, and a small horde of athlete-watchers appeared out of nowhere, phones raised and glossy prints of the advertisement campaigns Greg’s done over the years raised in wildly outstretched hands—turning the airport terminal entrance into a waving field of Rossignol skis, and Brenne Whisky, and sharp razors gliding across Greg’s smooth, photoshopped jaw.

John had stepped aside, almost too effortlessly fading away into the crowd. He carefully watched the looks on Greg and Sherlock’s faces without wanting to outright stare as the two of them were swarmed by looks of fascinated awe and waving arms.

Sherlock had looked miffed. Well, irritated beyond _belief_ would have been a more accurate term. He’d stood there like an unmovable statue with his hands behind his back, his chin high and the collar of his long wool coat popped up around his neck.

“ _Yes,_ ” John had thought he’d heard him say, just once, to the question of whether he thought he could win Gold this year. Then he’d remained absolutely silent, sometimes even closing his eyes.

And meanwhile, after a brief pause where he stood frozen and blinking on the pavement, Greg had transformed into the epitome of the Super-Greg everyone loved—patiently answering as many questions as he could from the few reporters about Sherlock’s training and chances, effortlessly switching between English and French. 

“ _And you? How does it feel to be in the coach’s jacket this year?_ ” someone had asked, to which Greg had grinned, and put a rough hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, and replied, “ _But it is wonderful—I could not have asked for a better first student. Plus, now I get to relax, _non_? Putting up my feet for a change!_” 

For some reason, John had found himself wincing at the chorus of enthusiastic laughter to Greg’s perfect response.

And then there were the autographs, and the selfies, and John had realized after a few minutes that he couldn’t for the life of him interpret the expression on Greg’s face behind his cheerful, smiling eyes. Whether he was burning with embarrassment over the whole stare-worthy spectacle, or glancing around the small crowd with something like . . . surprise? Relief?

John hadn’t had time to process in the chaos of it all that nobody had even noticed him stepping out of the same cab. That even with a sea of autograph-hunters and journalists and cameras, he hadn’t even needed to use Sherlock’s lie.

He stands at attention now as Sherlock and Greg head towards him, the France24 team having already moved on to the Team France ice dancing hopefuls—a married couple who keep kissing each others’ cheeks during the interview as part of ‘their thing.’ John quickly glances around at who might be watching the three of them meet up, feeling foolish even as he does, then steps forward only when he’s satisfied no one is still trying to flag Greg down.

Greg looks apologetic, already murmuring, “Sorry about all of this, John,” just as Sherlock huffs dramatically and blows a curl out of his eyes.

“ _God_ that was tedious.”

Greg looks like he barely wastes enough energy to produce a full glare. “It would have been a lot more fast—”

“A lot _faster_.”

“—if you had just spoken in your normal French. Not all of that ‘oh, what is this word you are saying?’ and ‘can you repeat the question, please?’”

John gapes. “He did that?”

“Ask of him yourself.”

Sherlock dramatically imitates Greg’s accent. “You are speaking too fastly. I cannot be understanding ze words zat you are sayeeng. _Quoi_?”

John holds in a guffaw. “Seriously? On national television—”

“ _International_ television.”

“What are you, five?”

But Sherlock just winks at him, then smirks, holding his head high with his hands behind his back. He stands there looking powerful and untouchable and gorgeous in the midday sun. Calmly breathing in the swirling air of the Olympics as if he was born to stand there—the beaming centerpoint of the thrumming chaos like he’s the flame in the Olympic Torch. 

And John thinks that Sherlock is absolutely infuriating, and that he wants to grab his face and kiss him madly, and that Sherlock might have more life in him than the sun itself—all the usual paths John’s thoughts take after he suspects Sherlock has done something completely ridiculous just to make John laugh.

Greg checks his watch, apparently not noticing the way John’s eyes are tracing Sherlock’s long column of throat. The way he licks his lips.

“ _Alors_ , they have opened the check-in tables by now, _non_? Should we begin the—”

“Yes, let’s get this pointless check-in circus over with as quickly as possible so we can walk straight back outside and chuck our Welcome Packets into the nearest non-recyclable bin. Yes, please.”

John barely catches those last words as Sherlock stomps off without them, his wool coat flying dramatically in the wind, looking almost hilariously incongruous in a sea of puffy vests and waterproof jackets. The billowing tail of the coat whacks two other unsuspecting athletes in the face when Sherlock barges past a small bench.

Greg sighs, crossing his arms, then subtly shifts his weight so his arm briefly brushes against John’s. “ _Merde_ John, I think I will be telling you a lot over the next weeks how grateful I am to have you here,” he says, shaking his head at Sherlock leaping over another athlete who just slipped on the ice without offering to help him up. “Perhaps you will get sick of me repeating myself.”

An odd shiver rolls across John’s skin at the brush of Greg’s warm body against his own in such a public place, and he finds himself moving so that they’re farther apart. He starts to follow in Sherlock’s path of terror and destruction across the Village, hauling his bag along with his good arm and not needing to bother worrying whether he’s walking too fast for Greg to catch up.

“I’m always grateful to have you with me,” John finally whispers, just when Greg reaches his side through the chaos, and John doesn’t have the time or place to think about why he’s suddenly grateful that they immediately walk through such a dense crowd of people that Greg can’t respond.

John feels something slip out of place in his gait just as the Welcome Center comes into view, and he squeezes Greg’s arm as a quiet warning before stepping out of the main path of traffic. He carefully bends over to adjust his shoe on his prosthetic foot, and sweat prickles along the back of his neck as he finds himself trying his best to obscure any glints of metal behind his pantleg and hands. Two separate people inevitably ask him if he’s alright, if he needs any help, to which John puts on his best, “ _nah I’m good, but thanks, mate!_ ” face and waves them along.

When he finally looks up again to see where Greg’s been waiting for him, John blinks hard when he finds him in the middle of a giant swarm, surrounded by what appears to be a group of skiers from over half the world. 

John freezes. He watches from the shadows, a hot tug in his chest, as skiers young enough to be Greg’s kids beg and plead for a photo, wildly placing their flashy new phones in his gloved hands.

The buzzing crowd around Greg widens. It grows and grows. One of the most decorated individual athletes in Winter Olympic history is standing in the middle of the Village, and everyone wants at least a glimpse. A handshake. A blurry photo of his silvery hair in the bright sun.

John is just starting the process of awkwardly deciding whether to keep waiting or go on without him when Greg looks back over his shoulder, immediately locking eyes with John through the bustling crowd. Greg lifts his hands in a quick, silent apology, casually shrugging his shoulders, but there’s something else there hidden in the lines of his mouth, some expression on his face . . .

John gasps when he realizes that Greg’s eyes are actually wide and wet—glazed over and shining and utterly shocked. He looks like he did that unassuming winter morning on a pristine slope in the French Alps, when a wild, absurd, unbelievable skier named Sherlock Holmes had just finished whispering to John, “ _Oh, great, here comes my coach to scold me for running off, just ignore him and pretend you don’t know who he is, if you do._ ” And then a cursing Greg Lestrade had appeared through the trees into the open snow, Sherlock’s surname on his furious lips. And he’d seen John Watson sitting calmly in his monoski by Sherlock’s side. And Greg had stopped dead in his tracks, mid-curse, and breathed, “ _John Watson?_ ”

John swallows down the surprising ball of tight heat in his throat as he grins at Greg now, giving him a silent _’go on, give the kids what they want_.’ Greg raises his eyebrows, ‘ _are you sure?_ ’ and John waves him off before turning to find his own check-in line, surprised at the pang of sudden loneliness he feels at having to walk away and leave Super-Greg behind.

John pulls up his muffler over his frozen lips and chin as he heads away from the swarm towards the Athlete Welcome Center, shivering at the rasp of his scarf against his long stubble from days of traveling. Athletes of all unbelievable shapes and sizes continue to dash around him across the too-clean pathways connecting the glittering new high rises which surge up into the clear sky. He takes in the chaos as if he’s looking at it all on the telly, as if he can practically hear the news anchors speculating over who is who, and which country commissioned what designer for their Ceremony uniforms, and whether the Olympic staff are feeling the pressure now that all of the athletes have arrived.

Except, they haven’t all arrived yet. Not technically. 

Nearly an hour later, once he’s wound his way through the miles of endless lines and check-in points, John peeks across the table at the old-fashioned paper list in the woman’s hands and sees that he’s one of only a handful of Paralympic athletes already there—just him and what look like the cross country racers and curlers, whose events are overlapping way earlier into the ‘normal Olympics’ block of time. The woman seated in her crisp Olympics uniform gives him a warm smile as she hands him his room key and information packet, practically beaming, as if she’s trying to make up for the fact that John’s the only one in line at the smallest check-in table, all the way in the corner.

“Wanted to get a lay of the land for a couple weeks first?” she asks in a Swiss accent, and with a perfectly-coached smile.

John starts to nod, then frowns. “What? Er, no, just . . . I know one of the skiers . . . in Super—”

“I understand,” she says immediately, leaning forward and giving a quick wink, as if they’re suddenly best mates sharing secrets in the empty corner. “I would be nervous too, with all of the Olympic athletes around at the same time. It is chaos! And we cannot help it if we are curious.” 

John stands there, nearly dumbfounded in the murmuring hum of the room, as the woman quickly gestures towards the ‘Olympics’ check-in tables—the lines and lines of statuesque athletes standing brawny and tall, and then, _ah_. 

He suddenly recognizes the look she’s giving him as one you would give to the only child in class with a lisp before they have to go up and give a sweating class presentation.

John puts on a tight smile and grabs his access pass from her outstretched palm. “Just here early to watch a friend compete,” he says, barely resisting the urge to snarl his teeth, and then he walks away as bloody quickly and _normally_ as possible, suddenly desperate for that blast of cold air outside.

It’s more than just a blast. John winces at the freezing whirlwind of fog and snow coming down off the nearby mountains, shivering uncontrollably beneath his jacket. He unconsciously rubs his palm over his left chest and shoulder to try and ward off the inevitable ache, unable to feel the raised skin through the thick layers of his puffy vest and snow jacket. He fruitlessly scans the main courtyard for nearly five minutes, trying and failing to get signal on his phone, until he finally spots Greg and Sherlock back together again in front of _another_ interview camera—what looks to be the NBC International Coverage team.

He wants to walk closer and wait for them to be done, and chuckle to himself watching Sherlock pretend that he can’t understand the English questions because he’s somehow too French. But something about the two of them standing so tall and proud, side by side with the brilliant new Team France coats they received at their check-in draped over their shoulders for the camera, makes John stop in his tracks where he is and study the ground instead. 

He truly forgets, sometimes. 

He forgets, on those rare mornings at their other house in Chamonix before a long day of training, when Greg, half-asleep, hands him a cup of perfect tea in their kitchen—his silver hair mussed in all directions and wearing his ancient briefs with the holes in the hem. Or the precious few times when they take advantage of Sherlock and Greg’s ridiculous stores of sponsorship or family or advertising money and find a pristine, private slope for the three of them to just ski—no judges or grandstands or timekeepers in sight. Or those nights in hotel rooms when the three of them pile onto a too-small bed, and John pauses halfway through a takeaway and looks over at Greg holding a sleeping Sherlock against his chest, that way Greg always does after an exhausting day out on the slopes. When Greg kisses into Sherlock’s curls and inhales with his eyes closed.

All those times, it is so shockingly easy for John to forget that he is dating a celebrity. That he’s dating _two_ celebrities. Although Sherlock’s fame largely comes from an entirely different reason—the thought of which still makes John break out in a cold sweat of raging indignant fury.

Honestly, the fucking _gall_ of anyone to suggest that it was the possibility of a failed _drug test_ that made Sherlock drop out of Sochi before his race. . .

But John can’t let himself go down that particular rabbit hole right now. Not here. Not ever, if he’s honest with himself. He stares down at the way his right foot is twisting oddly to one side, tries to fix it without anyone noticing, and—

Ah. Right. He was thinking about millions of people watching NBC coverage of Greg Lestrade slapping a warm hand across his young protégé’s shoulders. 

And Sherlock Holmes and Greg Lestrade may not be figure skaters or snowboarding stars or the hockey team captains, but they’re known, and Greg is _adored_ —has inspired an entire generation of French kids to take up competitive skiing just because he wore a French flag about his shoulders all those unstoppable years he won Gold. All the way up until that last Sochi run.

And yet John still looks at him in the quieter moments of their life and can’t help but see the bright-eyed twenty-one year old kid, fresh off his stunning Silver medal win in Nagano, shyly turning to introduce himself to John on a tiny ski lift, as if eighteen-year-old John Watson didn’t already know exactly who the hell he was. Wasn’t already nervous and sweating at the thought that he was sharing a _lift_ , with _Greg Lestrade_ , and Greg’s wavy dark hair looked even softer in person than it did on telly, and his teeth shone in the snow, and his deep brown eyes . . .

So yes, sometimes—oftentimes—John Watson goes and forgets that he’s dating _le champion de France_.

And, well, “dating” feels like entirely the wrong word to use—for Greg or Sherlock, for that matter. It’s too . . . temporary. Too casual. As if John wasn’t one-thousand-percent sure about his choices when he specifically let those two people see the ruined, wrecked, mangled mess of his body without clothes for the first time, right after they’d both held him in their arms and kissed over his scarred shoulder.

And John suddenly starts to put the pieces together, standing there staring down at his right foot pointing the wrong way. 

Greg’s shocked face, and the wet glaze over his eyes, and the way his mouth was hanging open when he thought no one was looking . . . It seems absolutely impossible that the official face of Rossignol Skis would have thought _himself_ unrecognizable and ignored at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and yet he’d looked so—

“Dude, you lost or something?”

John whips his palm off his left shoulder and blinks to see the carbon copy of every single snowboarder he’d ever seen in California standing right in front of him, his swoopy blonde hair shining in the beaming reflection of the sun from the sea of Village high rises. 

John quickly glances at where Sherlock and Greg are still being bombarded by the NBC-International cameras, Greg speaking in streams of his beautiful, animated English, and Sherlock beside him with his arms crossed behind his back, giving one word answers with a purposefully bad accent.

John turns back to the boy— _man_ —in front of him and shakes his head. “No, sorry, mate. Didn’t realize I was in your way. Just . . taking it all in.”

“Aw, yeah bro,” he says, just as an identical boy-man but with swoopy _brown_ hair steps up. “I know, right? It’s unreal!”

The friend sticks out a hand and chimes in. “Asher. USA. Halfpipe,” he says, the standard Village greeting John is now well used to even after only a few hours. The first man mimics him, “Connor. Canada. Slopestyle.”

John takes both their hands with a firm grip, feeling like he’s a schoolteacher meeting his students on the first day of class. “John. Great Britain. Biathlon.”

Connor gives a long “ _ohhh_ ” before laughing and whacking John’s arm, “So _that’s_ your sick accent!” Just as Asher reels back and nods his head in dramatic approval. “Duuude, Biathlon—like, with the guns and shit?!”

John has to fight back a smile despite himself. He wonders whether he should be completely ashamed that his chest has puffed up under the praise of this sixteen-year-old tube of walking hair gel. “Yeah,” he says, with an overly casual shrug. “With the guns and shit.”

Connor’s eyes grow wide. “Dude, you must be freaking! Your prelims are happening in like . . . twenty hours!”

And oh, John is so fucking tempted just to shrug and say, “ _Yeah, I’m freaking!_ ” and then lie about heading off to go fit in some last-minute practice. To wave them off thinking they’ll see him on telly screens in twenty-four hours instead of nearly two weeks. But . . .

He shakes his head and tries to stand up as straight as possible. “No,” he says. “I’m in about two weeks, actually.”

“In two we—? _Oh . . ._ ” 

Asher trails off, and John forces himself to keep his head high as he watches the two of them do the quick up-and-down of his body with their eyes, trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with him. Which part doesn’t work correctly. Which part he’s missing.

They find it in the gust of icy wind blowing his snow pants close against his legs— _leg_.

Connor blinks hard, momentarily frozen, then comes back to life and meets John’s gaze again, as if John couldn’t have noticed their little pause at all. “Aw, man, that’s cool!” he says, with a strange, too-high voice. “Alright, cool. Yeah, man. Cool.”

Asher nods beside him, arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah, man. That’s . . . that’s cool!”

The poor blokes couldn’t have sounded less disinterested now in John’s “guns and shit” if they tried. John wonders whether he should find it worrying that he really doesn’t blame them. He thinks, not for the first time, not even for the hundredth time, why anyone in their right mind would want to watch him ski and shoot a gun when they could watch someone else ski _faster_ and shoot a gun _quicker_ just twelve days earlier—all the fierce arguments he lobbed at Sherlock back at home yesterday be damned.

He’s just about to make up a quick excuse to leave to get the two boys out of more awkward fumbling when a third athlete sprints up, wrapping his arms immediately around Connor and Asher’s shoulders with a great huff.

“ _Sage-USA-BigAir_ ,” he says to John all in one great rush of a word, then, without asking John for his name back, he turns to the two smiling snowboarders trapped under his arms. “You guys hear about the party, yet? The lugers are throwing it. Tonight. Building 102.”

Asher’s jaw drops. “Aw, hell yeah, who else is going?”

Connor smirks. “The skaters gonna be there? Women’s hockey??”

“The chick bobsled team?!”

“Ah, I’m not so sure, though, my coach is gonna be pissed . . .”

“Dude!”

“If he finds out . . .”

And John is slowly backing away, convinced they’ve all completely forgotten his existence, willing himself to fade into peaceful oblivion as he carefully picks his gear bag up off the ground, when Sage-USA-BigAir throws back his head and laughs.

“Bro, stop worrying!” he cries. “ _Everyone’s_ going. Your coach won’t care.”

“Everyone?”

“You know what I mean. All the _good_ ones are gonna be there. It’s not like the fucking curlers are gonna show up. And the _other_ ones don’t get here for at least another week. Nobody to kill the vibe—come on!”

Everything happens so fast.

John tries to casually disappear, Connor and Asher send him the two most uncomfortable looks ever known to man, there’s a giant whoosh of wool coat suddenly blocking John’s view, a pale hand pushing him back from the group, and then a voice made of pure ice and steel is quietly demanding, “Say that one more time.”

John steps to the side of wool-coat-mountain just in time to see Sage-USA-BigAir’s eyes frown in confusion. The kid stares up at Sherlock, who stands nearly a foot taller than him. “Say what? Who are you?”

Connor’s mouth drops open. “Don’t you know? That’s Sh—”

But Sherlock interrupts him, shifting so he’s once again standing right in front of John and staring straight down at Sage. “I said. Say that. One more. Time.”

Out of nowhere, a sudden rage boils up in John’s chest—a rage which has absolutely nothing to do with three snowboarding teenage boys, and everything to do with the pale hand still pushing him back, shielding him from view.

He not-too-gently elbows Sherlock’s side as he moves to get around him, finally sticking out his hand to Sage with a tightly polite smile. “Sorry ‘bout my friend here,” John says with a dramatically exasperated roll of his eyes. “He’s a French skier—his English isn’t so great. I think he just really wanted to confirm where this sick party is taking place. Oh, and I’m John, by the way.”

Sage takes John’s hand with a bewildered look, barely touching John’s fingers. John shoots an icy look Sherlock’s way and stomps on his foot when he hears Sherlock draw in more breath, probably about to eviscerate a teenager in the middle of the Olympic Village all for John’s bloody _honor_ , then John turns back to Sage. 

“Oops, sorry, forgot to _fully_ introduce myself,” John says, looking the frozen kid straight in the eye. “Group Captain John Watson. Great Britain. Paralympic Biathlon. Pleasure to meet you, and best of luck. Same to you both.”

Then he cleanly hefts his gear bag from the ground, swings it over his good shoulder, and walks away from them in his usual stride, not bothering to hide the slight limp from his prosthesis and wondering if they can see the pure flames of fire steaming out of his head.

He only gets about forty-five seconds away from them all when he hears graceful jogging behind him—infuriatingly smooth on the pavement covered with slick ice and snow.

Sherlock laughs breathlessly as he practically floats in John’s wake. “Oh, _John_ , that was marvelous!” he sighs. “Wonderful! You clearly had the right idea. My first thought was to verbally embarrass him in front of his friends for having never kissed anyone yet, but—”

“How can you know—? God, nevermind—”

“—but your introduction was priceless! The look on his face! You should have stuck around to see it! Group Captain John Watson, you ingenious, glorious, beautiful—”

“ _Shut up._ ”

John stops in his tracks just as they turn a corner to a relatively secluded courtyard, holding up a tense finger straight at Sherlock’s chest. “Just, shut up. First of all, do you, you absolute _nitwit_ , realize that _everyone_ here has ears? That one fucking twenty-something with one fucking mobile could catch you calling a fucking random male athlete ‘marvelous, glorious, beautiful’ and give you _another_ fucking Olympics rumor to contend with? _Another_ scandal?”

“John, please, no one was even listeni—”

“And second of all, you _fuck_ , I didn’t need you to step in there in front of me and loom over those kids like I’m some . . . some fucking helpless, incapable—”

“Well, I couldn’t just let him—”

“I can fucking handle myself. They were _kids_. You of all people should fucking know I don’t need anyone to—”

“Of course I bloody know you don’t need anyone’s help. I’m not _Greg_. But that doesn’t mean it’s fair for you to have to . . . John, it’s your _Olympics_ , I’m only trying to—”

“Yeah? Well listen to this. Fucking _stop trying_.”

“You didn’t even let me finish what I was trying to sa—”

“Holmes!”

John looks up at the unfamiliar name in the familiar voice. Greg is jogging to them across the courtyard, looking like he’s just run across the entire earth to find them.

“ _Zut alors_ I have been looking everywhere for you! You have just disappeared halfway through the interview, not answering your phone, and they just opened the . . . John? _Qu’est ce qui s’est passé_?”

“Nothing,” John says, just as Sherlock opens his big mouth and declares, “John came across a Legitimate Snowboarding Arsehole who was made up of ninety-percent body spray and I offered to give said Arsehole a piece of my mind.”

Greg frowns, suddenly concerned, and he asks before John can think of a way to change the subject, “ _Enfoiré_ in what way?”

John would have to be an idiot to miss the quick silent communication between them, all in the span of a single blink, and then Greg is turning back to him with a look that makes John want to take his gun out of his bag and shoot it at the nearest target-esque thing.

Greg takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice, looking at him so gently it’s like he’s afraid John will shatter and break. “Are you alright, J?”

Somehow, that’s even worse than everything Sherlock did combined. 

John gives a tight nod and adjusts his bag over his shoulder. “Fine.”

Greg looks like he’s about to continue when Sherlock dramatically huffs. “Well come on, out with it. You were obviously chasing me down to give me some important news.”

Greg gives John another hesitant glance before dropping it and turning to Sherlock. “Well, first of all, we all have the rooms in separate buildings, so—”

“Yes, obviously. John is in the adapted housing even though he exists every other day of his life in non-adapted housing just fine, I’m in the athletes building, and you’re with the coaches and gear teams down the road, I could have told you that _days_ ago.”

Greg runs a hand through his hair, and John notices that his spine is already sagging, the bags under his eyes already puffy and grey. “ _Aujourd’hui tu es vraiment quelque chose, Holmes_ ,” he groans.

“We’re not even on the slopes right now. You don’t have to ‘Holmes’ me—”

“That does’t matter. We are still here in the Village, _non_? Just like we have talked about before.”

John shoots Greg a grateful glance. At least the two of them are still on the same page about that. He clears his throat and steps closer into their little huddle. “Look, about the rooms, I wasn’t really expecting for us to—”

“I can get around the key card system, obviously. Presumably Greg is the only one of us who will have a room to himself, part of his coach’s status, so the two of you will have to work it out amongst yourselves how to get John down there on the nights you want to have sex—”

“Holmes!”

“—since you can’t go twenty days without—”

“ _Sherlock!_ ”

“Now what was the _real_ piece of information you’ve come to tell me?”

Greg sighs, looks at John almost apologetically, then gestures back to the main hub of the Village. “A van is leaving in ten minutes. They have opened up Jeongseon for initial runs, if you wanted to—”

“Lestrade, get my gear.”

Sherlock is already twenty feet away from them in what feels like the span of two seconds, practically levitating across the pavement to get to that van, when suddenly he stops mid-stride, turns on his heel, and jogs back to them with an odd look on his face.

He stops just in front of where Greg and John still stand somewhat dumbfounded in the shadows of the nearest high rise, and he fidgets and looks down at his feet for a few seconds before finally looking up at John. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. He gestures back towards the main courtyard. “For that. You were right.” He reaches out with a tentative hand and briefly traces John’s thumb with just the tip of his finger. “John, you know that I . . .” he pauses and bites his lip, then stares at his fingertip hovering near John’s clenched hand. “I’m so glad that you’re here . . . with me. With us.” 

And Christ, he says it in such a soft, halting voice that it suddenly reminds John that Sherlock really _is_ still young, and that he desperately _wants_ this—that this is his Olympics, too. His bloody _earned_ one.

John closes his eyes for a beat and softens. The urge to wrap Sherlock Holmes in his arms, with Greg’s sturdy chest right behind him, is nearly overwhelming. He considers holding out a hand to Sherlock at least, glances around them to check, but then doesn’t. 

“I know you’re sorry,” John whispers. “You’re alright.” Then, with a small grin, “And I’m sorry for calling you a nitwit and a fuck. You complete bastard.”

Greg laughs. “John, that was all you could come up with? Normally you are more creative.”

John tries not to grin too widely at Sherlock, who’s looking at the both of them with the same bright, nervous energy that had been in the eyes of all the star-struck skiers begging for Greg’s autograph just an hour before.

John sighs through his nose and shakes his head. “Yeah, well, he was being _vraiment quelque chose_ today,” he finally says. “I was too pissed to be creative.”

Sherlock’s eyes finally brighten at that, and he gives John another long, full glance before turning to Greg with a fidgeting excitement back in his limbs. “Please, Greg, will you help get my gear?” he asks, looking like an eight-year-old asking to open his first Christmas present.

Greg just rolls his eyes and claps him hard on the back in what John notices is still his coach-like manner—the perfect amount of distance between them. “ _Alors, allez viens_ , you . . .” Greg’s mouth cracks a smile. “You ridiculous _con_.” He looks back over his shoulder. “John, you will be alright?”

John nods. “Go on, then. He’ll explode if you don’t.”

When Greg raises his eyebrows to make sure, John waves them off. “I’ll find my room. Maybe check out the rec center to stretch from all the bloody flying. Check out the course and fit in some training.”

He catches Sherlock giving him an odd look over his shoulder, and John swallows hard when it dawns on him that Sherlock’s look probably has something to do with the fact that Sherlock’s training run involves official coaches, and team jackets, and television crews, and gear maintenance teams, and an audience already in the stands. And John’s training runs involve John somehow getting himself down to the Biathlon stadium and just . . . skiing around by himself. Trying to remember everything the coach told him during the three months of training John didn’t even pay for.

John shakes his head and smiles, gesturing for Sherlock to go on, don’t worry about him.

He watches Greg and Sherlock walk off together towards the transport vans, already discussing Sherlock’s practice run schedule in such rapid French that John could never understand it even at half-speed. The two of them keep perfectly in stride shoulder-to-shoulder, Sherlock shining like the sun, his hands flying with excitement and anticipation, with pure _focus_ , and Greg listens to him carefully with that soft, amazed smile on his lips, like Sherlock’s the dearest, most awesome, most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

They fade effortlessly into the sparkling Olympics hum, energized and seamless and not even breaking their rhythm. John waits until he can’t make out Sherlock’s curls above the crowds anymore, until the silver of Greg’s hair fades in with the piercing sky. 

A news helicopter suddenly cuts through the steel grey, soaring overhead in a graceful arc with a whirring hum, and John cranes his neck from the freezing shade to track it through the sky. 

His bones vibrate. His palms itch and clench with the longing to drape like velvet across the controls, the smooth gears under his fingertips, the roar of the air in his ears and down his throat. The searing blue of the sky.

But then the helicopter is gone, sailing away to go and film the exciting practice runs at one of the distant stadiums, and in the thick, ensuing silence after the whirs finally fade, John unclenches his fists, leans back against the concrete wall behind him, and closes his eyes.

It’s these moments when it hits him—when Greg and Sherlock are flying down a mountainside at top speed, or laughing together over something Sherlock said in French during one of their practices. When Greg’s grabbing Sherlock’s hips, taking him from behind, fucking him in a way John never physically could. When the two of them practically _glow_ in the light from their world—the skis and the races and the mountains they’ve both lived for for their entire lives without any long gaps off in a smoking desert.

It’s these moments when John wonders if maybe they only ever speak in English for him—no matter that Sherlock didn’t even learn French until he was ten. If they get annoyed at having to walk slower for his limping stride. If they want to tackle the black diamond runs on their precious group vacations but settle for cross-country sightseeing with John instead. If they want, want, want . . . or wish, wish, wish . . . or regret—

John’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He jumps, surprised he even has signal, half-expecting it to be a text from Sherlock magically asking him why the hell he’s still leaning against the wall outside even though Sherlock and Greg’s van has probably already left.

But it isn’t Greg making sure he’s still alright, or Sherlock telling him he’s an idiot for letting his leg get so cold. It’s an unidentified number—an official Olympics email address, actually.

Reminding him that his final classifications physical is tomorrow at eight a.m—the final classifications physical he has for some reason kept a tight-lipped secret from Sherlock and Greg ever since he touched down in London. 

And now Sherlock and Greg will spend the rest of their afternoon on the thrilling Pyeongchang slopes, and maybe they’ll crawl into Greg’s coach’s bed together tonight after Greg offers to massage Sherlock’s thighs and back. And John will wake up tomorrow in his ‘adapted-accomodations’ room next to a random roommate, and he’ll go have a random stranger put their hands on his stump to test the physical strength in what’s left of his thigh. Put their hands on the burn scars across his shoulder to make sure he can actually still move his arm.

He doesn’t realize until someone looks at him oddly and asks if he’s alright that he’s been thinking these thoughts for who knows how long. And that he’s been thinking them while standing in his never-really-forgotten parade rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French shit:  
> le champion de France : the champion of France  
> zut alors : dammit (roughly)  
> qu’est ce qui s’est passé ? : what happened?  
> enfoiré : asshole (not literally, but . . . the same general meaning)  
> Aujourd’hui tu es vraiment quelque chose, Holmes. : You're being very *special* today, Holmes. (special in a VERY sarcastic way). More literally, 'today you're really something."  
> con : more informal way of saying "idiot"
> 
> -A monoski is one of the most amazing pieces of sports equipment I've ever seen. It's a sit-ski for athletes who cannot use their legs. Learn more about it [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSVj-myzQrE/) These skis are used by skiers doing alpine skiing (downhill skiing). As we'll learn later, John meets Sherlock early on in his recovery process, so even though he hasn't lost the use of both legs, it makes sense that he would be making his transition back to skiing by using a monoski, since his other leg would be weak.
> 
> -John does Nordic skiing, which is cross-country (flat-ish) skiing. Nordic Paralympic skiers who are either amputees or do not have full use of their legs often use moniskis / sit-skis, or (in the case of Class LW-2, they normally stand-ski on one leg and use two outriggers instead of traditional skiing poles). HOWEVER, because this is fan fiction, Sherlock has helped design John a prosthesis that the Paralympics is magically approving for John to Nordic ski standing up on *two* skis, with traditional poles. 
> 
> -Paralympians really do go through this classification test process leading up to the Olympics. They have a physical examination and test, are observed doing technical tests out in the field, their medical records and health records are considered, and they're also often observed in competition. I'm bending reality here, though, because they definitely do not do final checks *at* the Olympics itself. It's all completed beforehand. The class an athlete gets then determines what class they compete in. So John will only compete with other LW-2 skiers, which is 'standing class, single leg amputation above the knee.' Like I said, this class's approved equipment is a single ski with two outriggers, but John's magical made-up prosthesis will allow him to use both skis. Just . . . go along with it. We'll continue to learn more about how Paralympic classes and scoring work later!  
> (think these classes sound complicated now? There are NINETEEN SEPARATE CLASSES JUST FOR SKIING ALONE)
> 
> -Group Captain is a Royal Air Force rank. It cannot be shortened to just "Captain", hence the full use of it above. I promise we'll learn more soon.
> 
> -Apologies to all teenage boy snowboarders from California who I have besmirched with this representation.
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for the amazing comments so far! They are the life force behind this fic and I come back and read them again and again. Thank you thank you.
> 
>  
> 
> Next time: Get ready, it's a chapter filled with Johnlock! Yes, really!


	5. Flaws

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> HUGE thanks to all of you who have been leaving such incredibly kind comments on this fic. I've fallen pretty hard for this universe and I love love love being able to share it with all of you.
> 
> Listen to "Flaws" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=862kLBuEsZw/).
> 
> *Note: we learn how John got his injury in this chapter. It is very brief, just a paragraph, and you can see it coming when he thinks about being cold. Due to the nature of his injury, though, it is understandably graphic. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_8 February 2018, 8:03 am_

 

At least the bloke’s hands are warm.

It’s the only consolation John can think of as he lies flat on his back on the exam table, and the clock on the white wall _ticks, ticks, ticks,_ and the poor nurse who got stuck with the earliest classification test shift tries to hide his deep yawn behind his arm. 

“You are going to push back against my hand for as long as you comfortably can,” the tester says, placing his palm on top of John’s right thigh. The edges of his fingertips bleed over the hem of John’s shorts onto his skin, and John can hardly bear to look down at the man’s tan fingers edging so close to the web of pale pink scars across his residual limb.

“Begin,” the nurse says, glancing at the clock as a timer, and John thinks about the first time he ever skied beside Sherlock Holmes, the first time he ever successfully took off and flew in the pilot’s seat, the first time he kissed Greg Lestrade in the snowy trees, and he closes his eyes and lifts up his thigh, reminding himself every second that the burning wave through his knee and calf and foot isn’t real.

The nurse strengthens his resistance, and John takes a deep breath and presses up even harder.

It’s only been a few weeks since he had his initial classification back in California, the day after a Christmas he’d spent sitting alone in his hotel room trying and failing to get a good enough Skype connection to call Sherlock and Greg. He knows he’s only been back with the two of them for a couple days, but still, it feels like it’s been years since a person other than Sherlock or Greg touched his bare skin the way the nurse’s fingertips are doing now. Feels like it’s been impossibly long decades since he last saw fingers that weren’t long and pale and elegant anywhere near the scars still covering his thigh from when they’d tried to salvage the blasted skin left clinging to his bones.

Greg never goes anywhere near the fucking scars, as if just the stroke of his fingers alone would cause John unimaginable pain. 

Sometimes, when John wakes up in the middle of the night with Greg lying in his arms, his body stable and warm, the soft breadth of his naked back so achingly _known_ . . . On those nights John thinks that if he had to look down and watch Greg Lestrade touch his scars—the same thigh Greg had once smoothly kissed and licked, back when his hair was still deep brown, back when they both nervously groaned together and laughed—that it really _would_ cause him unimaginable pain. Cause them _both_ —

John clenches his stomach and continues to lift his leg up as hard as he can, inwardly proud at how much farther he’s able to push up against the tester’s resistance since December. He keeps lifting up until a bead of sweat drips down his forehead, and the thin t-shirt suddenly feels too tight across his arms and chest, then he lets his stump fall back down to the table with a deep whoosh of breath.

The testing nurse nods in surprised approval down at his clipboard. John tries to crane his neck to read what he’s writing, but the notes and paperwork are all in an odd mix of Korean and French. 

“Sit up, and shirt off,” the nurse says without any extra commentary. “Now we’ll test your shoulder.”

John finds he appreciates the bleak clinical tone of the whole thing. It reminds him of the field hospital nurses in Afghanistan before he’d been stable enough to travel back to England—the way they had never sugarcoated anything, and the way their encouragement and congratulations had only been genuinely earned. The way they never tried to step in and help him unless he looked them in the eye and specifically asked. 

It had been a sharp clarity to cling to in the the haze of sad looks from his visiting squadron—the ones still left after the midnight attack. Those, and the mournful, endless groans coming from some of the even worse off men and women in the surrounding beds. It had been a solid memory to cling to when he saw the thinly-veiled pity from the non-RAF nurses back at the civilian hospital, after he was finally transported home for seemingly endless physical therapy. The way some of the young doctors in training on their rounds wouldn’t be able to mask their surprise when they recognized his name from the papers—that blasted news article with the high-definition photos which haunted him in his feverish dreams.

The nurse now doesn’t even blink when John takes off his shirt, mostly one-handed after a night of sleeping weird on his weaker arm. The nurse puts his warm hands immediately back on John’s chest to correct his posture for the test, and there’s a brief accidental stroke across the rings through his nipples—one which makes the nurse blink and quickly breathe out a professional, “Sorry.”

John tracks the nurse’s faintly surprised gaze fluttering to the faded purple bruise sucked into his neck, and he finds himself foolishly proud in front of this freshly graduated young man that yes, John Watson can still pull, even at his age and in this state, thank you very much. He has a fleeting, humorous curiosity as to what this man’s reaction would be if he ever found out that John got himself off the night before to thoughts of two other men giving nearly the exact same brush to his nipples, but with their teeth.

The nurse frowns for a moment, oblivious to John’s rambling thoughts, before double-checking his notes on the thick stack of John’s medical records. “Sorry,” he says. “I am not as used to deciphering records in English. Is it just the tight skin that’s causing the impaired movement here?”

John swallows down at his hands, his stupid pride from earlier quickly smothered. “And internal damage.”

The nurse makes a professional sounding hum. “So burns and . . . ah, shrapnel?”

John looks up at him, suddenly painfully aware of how close they’re standing—how vulnerable and visible he is without his shirt. The tight, scarred skin across the left side of his chest pulls as he breathes. 

“Yes. Both,” he says back.

The nurse gives a casual nod, completely unphased. “Thank you. Just want to be sure what I’m looking for in your movement. Hold out your arm and provide resistance against me. Keep at forty-five degrees.”

And so it goes. 

John doesn’t break apart from his injuries while completing his shoulder test, or perish from the balance test, or faint with exhaustion from the standing squat test. He hasn’t lost any more limbs by the time the clock reads eight twenty-two and the nurse confidently clears his throat and says, “Exam is completed. You will remain in LW-2 as long as they give final approval on your adapted prosthesis to stand-ski.” 

John is nodding and already moving to pull his clothes back on when the nurse pauses from the doorway and peaks his head back in. The bleak clinical blankness on his face falls away, and John catches a glimpse of a relatively young man just excited to be working at the Olympics.

“And wonderful ink on your back,” he says with a nod to John’s shoulder blades. “I have seen a lot of unfortunate tattoos this week, and yours is very nice. The steady detail in the lines.”

John raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You could tell what it is?”

The nurse grins. “I took one astronomy class my first year of university. I failed. But it was worth it for me to appreciate that.”

John realizes he doesn’t quite mumble out a “thanks” until the nurse is already on the other side of the closed door, on to start his next check with the next athlete. 

John sighs in the quiet room. Rolls and cracks his neck a few times and stretches out his arm before pulling his shirt back on. He briefly checks his phone before he starts the process of getting his leg back on, and curses under his breath when he sees eight missed messages—one from Sherlock in the very beginning demanding that John come spread peanut butter on his toast, and the remaining seven all from Greg growing increasingly worried wondering where he is.

Something hot spreads through John’s chest. He suddenly feels stupidly foolish for not telling Greg and Sherlock that he had his test that morning—for somehow thinking that they would just go on with their breakfast and their day without even trying to see him. Especially since he hadn’t gotten to see them again after Sherlock completed his first training runs the night before. 

He opens a reply to Greg, knowing enough about Sherlock to suspect that he probably figured out where John was anyway after that first text. Or else John knows he would have had eight hundred missed messages by eight twenty-two in the morning, not just eight.

Sent: _Sorry I didn’t see these! I’m heading out for some practice. Will you two be at Alpine Ctr all day?_

Greg’s reply is immediate, and John’s chest aches again at the sudden mental image of Greg standing somewhere in the middle of the Olympics holding his phone in his palm, staring at it and waiting for it to ding . . .

Received: _John! T’étais où?_

Sent: _Sorry, just jetlagged. Slept like a log._

Received: _Comme un quoi?_

Sent: _A log. Ask S. How the fuck would I know your weird word for it?_

Received: _Why am I am the one who has to memorize two of every word?_

Sent: _You’ve had a 99% success rate for years. Why change now?_

Received: _Salaud. We missed you for le petit-déjeuner. AC only open today for slalom. I’m in coach meetings all day. S is somewhere on planet._

Sent: _Meetings? Yuck. Don’t come out wearing a business suit._

Received: _I won’t come back in a suit if you don’t come back missing an arm._

Sent: _Bastard. I’ll check in later today._

John sets his phone face down next to him on the table and grabs his leg. He quickly rolls on his protective sock by second-nature, careful to squeeze out all the air, then he reaches in his bag for his ever-present bottle of unmarked lube to rub down the inside of his socket. 

He grins to himself like he always does at this part, remembering how Sherlock’s brows had shot up into his curls the first time he ever saw John pull the bottle out of his bag on the fourth or fifth morning he’d ever invited John to join him to ski after they first met. And John had let Sherlock sit there silently squirming, pink in the face, as he calmly pulled himself out from his monoski and transferred back to his casual-walking-leg on an empty bench on a quiet corner outside the lodge. And only once he’d fit his stump inside and fully pumped out all the air, securing the valve, did John finally turn to Sherlock and simply say, “Yes, it’s lube,” to which Sherlock had sputtered something about how _of course_ he knew it was lubricant and _of course_ he knew that that’s what it was for and it wasn’t like rolling on the protective sock over his stump looked anything like rolling on a condom, not _at all_. And when John had told Greg about it when the two of them met up later for dinner, both of them sneaking poorly hidden glances at the other across the table in the flickering candlelight, they laughed together about it for nearly ten minutes. And John had realized when he got back to his little room at the end of the night that it was the longest and hardest he had laughed in over two years—ever since the crash.

He stands on his leg and shifts his weight to pump up and down the equivalent of ten steps, getting out all the air, then he leans against the exam table to painstakingly pull back on his altered base layer and loose, insulated snow pants. He wonders if the classification testers have some sort of unspoken agreement not to knock to try and hurry any of the amputees after their tests—not until someone finally walks out the exam room door on two feet. He lifts his bag with his good arm after securing his boots and checks his phone for the time, then pauses when he sees one last message from Greg.

Received: _Really, J. We missed you this morning. Ski swift, mon coeur._

John stops with his hand on the doorknob. He’s only seen those last four words in writing once before, the day he’d won his Biathlon class at the Para Alpine World Cup in Switzerland and officially qualified for the Paralympics. Greg had passed John a card across the table at their celebratory dinner with poorly-hidden tears in his eyes—a card which contained those four words from Greg, and then a brief note from Sherlock that John was somehow going to ski in the Olympics standing up on _two_ feet, and that the prototype for the new prosthesis would be ready in just three weeks. And that John wasn’t allowed to worry about where they got the money to pay.

John slips his phone back into his pocket without typing a reply. The fact that _the_ Greg Lestrade is currently standing in the middle of the Winter Olympics and texting _mon coeur_ to the sore, jobless, scar-covered amputee standing in the dim lighting of the Paralympic building fills John with a sharp wash of nausea. Greg Lestrade should be blasted across HD screens with a fifth Gold medal around his neck and a beautiful, strong, normal person there to congratulate him, someone like Sherlock Holmes, instead of sitting in a boring coaches’ meeting texting John Watson under the table.

He makes his way back down the Paralympic Athletic Center hallway to the last destination on his list—the final confirmation meeting of his class and equipment. He’s still thinking about what Greg’s face had looked like across that dinner table when he casually opens the door to the small meeting room, takes a step inside, and is immediately greeted by the sound of a chair quickly scraping back across the floor.

“Group Captain,” he hears in a crisp, attentive voice, and then John’s eyes focus on the young man in uniform at the end of the table, standing at attention and _saluting_ him, and John nearly drops his bag to the floor.

He quickly looks around the room as if this is some sort of joke, but when everyone is looking at him earnestly waiting for his response, John turns back to the young man and does a movement he hasn’t done in what feels like lifetimes.

He salutes back.

His eyes quickly trace the insignias on the man’s uniform and he nods his head. “Corporal.” Then, after a brief moment, “At ease.”

The soldier drops his hand and relaxes his spine, then practically flies across the floor in long, glorious strides with his hand outstretched to John’s.

John takes it, sure he has an utterly bewildered stare on his face and unable to wipe it away.

“Group Captain Watson,” the Corporal breathes. “Truly an honor to meet you, Sir. A privilege to shake your hand.”

John’s sure he’s gaping now. “I . . . I’m just John now,” he says lamely, giving a small grin. But he sees the soldier is entirely in earnest, still gripping hard at his palm as he gives him a firm shake, and so John adds, “But thank you, Corporal.”

The soldier nods, satisfied, then turns and gestures to the rest of the table. He introduces one by one the other people on the Classifications Committee for Nordic Skiing, ending with himself as Corporal Lloyd Johnson, Veterans’ Liaison Officer.

And John sits there and nods dumbly as they go over the final points of his classification, approving his adapted prosthesis with some reluctance ( _”Are you certain you wouldn’t rather go with the monoski for the support and balance? With the sit-ski?”_ ). John grins inwardly when his suspicion is confirmed that the committee have absolutely no idea that they’re discussing the intricate points of Super-G Gold Contender Sherlock Holmes’ original design. 

He leaves the meeting after a final handshake with Corporal Johnson with a very important signed piece of paper in his hand, then goes back to his room to change in a sort of slow-motion daze. He sets the very important signed piece of paper down on his bed. His roommate, an LW-6 from Mexico who only briefly nodded at John the night before, is gone. 

Somehow John ends up in full training gear sitting in a van with a bag full of skis slung over his shoulder. Somehow he pushes off on two slick skis through the snow for the first time in Korea at the outskirts of the Para-Biathlon stadium, taking one of the empty cross-country training course paths out through the sea of white and trees. 

And it’s only once he’s out in the middle of the snow, six kilometers beyond the Alpensia Para-Biathlon Center, two and a half hours into a self-lead training session with sweat pouring down his face into his eyes, and his thighs burning, and the ice against his cheeks . . .

It’s only _then_ that John suddenly doubles over, his hands on his knees, and realizes that he can’t breathe. That the freezing oxygen is sucking the breath from his lungs. That he’s going to die.

A gust of mountain wind blasts across his stunned face, stinging his gasping ips. He rips his goggles off his face and hurls them into the snow, unzips the top of his training jacket, and stares up at the sky with his arms behind his neck, willing his vibrating body to just breathe, breathe, fucking _breathe_.

“ _Group Captain,_ ” the soldier had so effortlessly said, his hand in a salute. Just like his squadron had all saluted him and said, “ _Group Captain_ ” in a resounding chorus before climbing up into their helicopters and planes and flying behind him into the screaming fire. 

To their deaths.

And now it’s freezing and grey and John can’t feel any of his fingers but he _can_ feel a roaring, fiery pain down his missing right knee and calf and his blood is staining the sand and it’s too fucking _cold_.

He closes his eyes, intending to quickly blink, but they stay closed, and another choking puff of cold air blasts against his face, and he thinks . . .

It had been cold that night. Cold and black and the stars stretching out for eternity above his head, and the thick sand against his back, and it had been quiet. Utterly quiet. And he’d reached out with the very last reserves of his strength to feel his right leg lying up in a mangled heap by his head. And it had been the only warm thing in a world made of black ice and freezing sand. It had felt wonderful. And he’d held onto it with a weak grasp and looked up at Orion blinking down at him, watching over him, making sure he wasn’t alone. And he used the strength of the stars themselves to shift and curl into a ball so he could reach down to staunch the blood pouring out of his leg with muddy sand, as if that would somehow mean anything when he was dead. Maybe they could at least see that he tried. And then he’d lain there, Orion above him and the sand against his back, his leg in his hand, his three last sensations on earth, and he’d wondered if they would find his broken helicopter half-buried in the sand in a thousand yea—

He tears off his gloves with his teeth, whips his phone out of the side zipper of his training ski pants, and finally gets it to turn on with numb, shaking fingers. By some shining light of God, he sees he has enough signal to at least send a text. It takes him nearly three minutes to type it out, his eyes going grey at the edges and his hands shaking so hard he drops his phone twice into the snow.

Sent: _Vatican cameos._

Two words he’s only ever had to type out twice before. The reply is almost immediate.

Received: _Where are you? SH_

John closes his eyes as a strangled moan escapes his throat. He forces himself to imagine the familiar angles of Sherlock’s bony fingers around his phone, the way his curls are probably falling into his eyes as he types, the slope of his scrunched nose.

Sent: _Training. Snow. Alpensia._

The replies come in rapid fire, one after the other, so quickly that if John was in his right mind he’d think that Sherlock’s fingers couldn’t physically type that quickly into his phone.

Received: _John Watson. Your body is currently maintaining an internal temperature of around 37 degrees. It is Thursday, February 7th 2018. It is 12:03 in the afternoon. You are in Pyeongchang, South Korea to compete in the Olympics. You are on the ground. You are not wearing an RAF uniform. You are wearing a jacket built to withstand zero degree weather to keep your skin warm. You are not bleeding. The sun is out. SH_

Then, roughly ten seconds later:

Received: _Can you make your way back? SH_

John closes his eyes and physically runs his hands over his body—his still heaving chest, and his burning thighs, and his prickling neck. He turns and gazes back down the training track towards the official Biathlon stadium far off in the distance, its grandstands and broadcasting screens glinting in the bright sun.

He looks up at the sky. He can’t see Orion, only the crisp, clear blue.

Sent: _Yes_.

Sherlock doesn’t question him.

Received: _Good. Hurry up. I’m bored. AC is closed for the idiot slaloms and G is busy being an adult. Break into my building. Key code 9571. Room 502. SH_

John realizes he wants to cry. He shoves his phone back in his pocket with fumbling hands and lets out all the stale breath in his lungs with a gasping moan, grunting out the last wisps of curdled fear from his gut. He leans over again with his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths as the roaring through his veins slowly fades. Nobody’s around to see the random Paralympic skier nearly sinking to his knees in the middle of the snow after barely three hours of mediocre practice. Nobody’s around to film it, or witness it, or announce it on telly. 

He’s never been more grateful in his life to be completely invisible. He tries to imagine what he would even do if that happened to him in the middle of a race and chokes down a nauseated gasp in his throat, already picturing the slow-motion replays of the skier in the very back suddenly falling into the snow, moaning that it’s too cold. And maybe Sherlock would sprint across the course to reach him, running straight through the race and shoving other skiers out of the way. And the cameras would zoom in on Sherlock Holmes having to kneel down in the wet snow, holding an out of his mind skier up out of the ice in his arms. Pressing that helpless, crying skier against his warm chest and fiercely telling him, “ _John Watson. Your body is currently maintaining an internal temperature of around 37 degrees . . ._ ”

And Greg would have to see.

John shakes the dark thoughts from his mind and sighs as he straightens his spine. The endless snow around him is still empty of any other athletes, course-marker flags gently fluttering in the idle breeze. He stoops to pick up his goggles from the snow and wipes off the lenses, checks and double checks his leg and its attachment to the ski, then turns and slowly works his way back down the gradual sloping path to the stadium, his bones growing warmer with each more powerful stroke he takes.

He doesn’t once look back.

. . .

Sherlock doesn’t even look up when John finally opens the left-unlocked door to Room 502. He’s sprawled out across his bed with his legs half up the wall, wearing only a pair of ridiculously tight black briefs and the thin blue dressing gown John hadn’t realized he’d brought from home. John breathes in a deep whiff of Sherlock’s soap in the air, closing his eyes as the familiar scent surrounds his skin.

“That took you ages,” Sherlock mutters at his hands. “You’ve lost all your training if it took you that long to cover only six kilometers on a downhill slope.”

John drops his backpack to Sherlock’s floor with a dull thud and stretches out his screaming arm. “How did you know I’d gone six kilometers?”

Sherlock shrugs where he’s staring down at his iPad. “Lucky guess.”

“What if I stopped to do something else before I came here? What if I took a shower?”

“You _did_ take a shower before you came here. The edges of your hair are wet. Plus you dropped off your gear bag and cleaned your skis. I accounted for the time of those activities in my estimations.”

John clenches and unclenches his slowly-warming hands, then stretches back his left arm against the wall to loosen the muscles. He grins at his feet. “Well, impress me. What else did I do before I came here, then?”

Sherlock finally meets his gaze, dropping the iPad to his lap. His roving, pale eyes seem to pierce John’s skin, stripping away the layers of his clothes and settling across his chest. John realizes that Sherlock’s room is incredibly warm, almost as if he’d cranked up the thermostat since John texted. Maybe he did.

And as Sherlock studies him, John realizes a few seconds too late that he might not want to hear Sherlock’s possible answers to his casual question. That Sherlock could continue staring sideways at him with his curls in a halo around his head, and then rattle off in his smooth, deep voice, “ _You also had a panic attack before you came here, thought you were still in a warzone, felt too cold in a sport where the entire point is to be cold and had to text me an SOS._ ”

But Sherlock merely squints at him for a long time, nearly thirty whole seconds, as John stands frozen near the door trying to keep his breathing calm and even. Then he finally huffs and rips his gaze away with a scrunched frown. “And you ate a protein bar on your way past the dining hall. Chocolate chip coconut flavor. Revolting.”

And as Sherlock rolls his eyes at him in protein-bar-flavor scorn, and casually turns back to whatever skiing-related video he’s watching on his screen, for the first time since the tester put his fingertips on the bare skin of John’s thigh that morning, John’s lungs finally take in a full breath of air. 

It bursts through his chest, releasing the coiled fear that had still been sitting tightly in his veins like shards of ice. He sighs as the muscles in his shoulders relax, then winces at the powerful burst of soreness that spreads through his neck and back in its wake. The fact that he can finally actually feel his soreness over a coiled, numb terror makes the ache feel like a beautiful thing.

Sherlock still doesn’t even look at him. Doesn’t ask him why he’s hesitating, or what happened, or how his practice went, or if he pushed himself too hard. He doesn’t look John in the eyes and beg him to explain why he just sent Sherlock a text he’s only had to send twice before—a text of nonsense words which Sherlock had seriously written down on a piece of paper and slipped into John’s wallet the morning after Greg and Sherlock woke up to the sound of John crying, crouched in the corner of the kitchen in the middle of the night. It had taken Sherlock only ten seconds to realize that the blanket had slipped off John as they all slept, and that he’d gotten too cold. John had never even told him about how freezing it had been in the sand that night.

And now Sherlock just scolds him for taking too long to break into his room, and he doesn’t even get up to hug John, or look at him with huge, mournful eyes, and the sight of a sprawled-out Sherlock just staring down at his iPad is suddenly the most wonderful thing John’s witnessed since arriving at the Olympics (aside from the look on Greg’s face from the middle of that swarming crowd).

John knows, as he takes one final minute to gather his wits standing just inside Sherlock’s door, that these are just a handful of the thousand reasons why he never texts “ _vatican cameos_ ” to Greg Lestrade. Why he never will. And he decides on the spur of the moment to save his inevitable guilt trip about that for later, when he’s alone.

John steps forward into the center of the small room and takes a look around, then frowns at the empty bed on the other side. “No roommate?”

Sherlock shrugs again. “I had some lucky guesses about his Olympic romantic prospects. I then shared them out loud.”

John shakes his head. “Wish you’d warned me about that in advance. I could’ve sold tickets for people to watch. Made some extra cash.”

“I’ll try to think of your monetary interests next time I’m met with complete incompetence,” Sherlock murmurs. Then, “Hand me my phone.”

John plops down on the side of the bed using his good leg, then leans down to pull up his loose snow pants to his right thigh. “Your phone is two inches from your hand. I’m not getting it for you.”

“But you’re stronger than me.”

“I am. But I also have fewer body parts than you.”

“So?”

“So you shouldn’t make the disabled do all your shit for you.”

Sherlock huffs. “Disabled? Really?”

John grunts as he shucks off his snow pants and long underwear, then peels off his jackets until he’s just in a thin t-shirt and his own briefs. He finally releases the pressure valve and pulls his stump out of the socket with a relieved sigh, slowly rolling off the protective sock so his skin can breathe. He flops down onto his back on the thin mattress next to Sherlock, shoving him out of the way until Sherlock finally moves with a great sigh to give John enough room. 

John hums, briefly lifting his stump from the bed before letting it thud back down. “Yes, really,” he says, continuing the conversation as he settles on top of the comforter and closes his eyes. “As you can see, I’d be terribly inconvenienced. It would take far too much out of me to get you your phone.”

“Never known you to be one for excuses, Watson.”

“Maybe I’m starting now.”

“Olympics is a bad place to start.”

“It’s the Paralympics. I can complain about whatever the fuck I want.”

Sherlock chuckles, and the sound of it is so tingling and warm across John’s skin, so _familiar_ in a world made of ice and blood and sand, that John shifts and rolls into Sherlock’s arms, pressing fully against his body and slotting his thigh between Sherlock’s legs.

Sherlock holds him close, running a hand up his back. The sharp angles and lean lines of his bones go soft beneath John’s weight, and Sherlock releases a long sigh through his nose into John’s hair. John can sense Sherlock’s eyes looking down at his face, studying the lines around his mouth and eyes. John lets him look for a long minute, breathing in the scent of Sherlock’s skin, then he buries his face into Sherlock’s neck and strokes his fingers up his bare chest, dancing over the planes of muscle as Sherlock breathes.

“Thank you for making the room warm,” John finally whispers into his shoulder.

John feels Sherlock swallow hard beneath him, and Sherlock holds him tightly enough that John can barely draw in a full breath. “Thank you for texting me,” Sherlock whispers back.

John finds that his throat is completely closed up, thrumming and hot and tight. He breathes for a long few minutes, settling into Sherlock’s strong arms around his back, his huge hands on John’s shoulders and the nape of his neck, before his throat finally feels clear enough to talk normally again. It’s incredibly hard for him in this moment to believe that the world extends beyond the boundaries of Sherlock’s little room. That the Olympics they just joked about is even a real thing that exists.

“Was surprised I had signal that far out there, to be honest,” he whispers, as if he didn’t just take five minutes to speak again.

To his surprise, Sherlock laughs, his stomach vibrating against John’s. “Damn,” Sherlock sighs. “Thought it would take you much longer to figure that out.”

John lifts up onto his elbow and looks down at Sherlock’s calm, open face, the lights in his eyes and the beautiful lines around his mouth. He can’t quite fight against the grin spreading across his own lips. “Figure out what?”

“That I installed an extra receptor on our phones so you’d have enough signal to reach my phone anywhere in the area. But don’t tell Greg—he hasn’t noticed yet that he’s magically the only coach who can successfully text his athlete when I’m at the top of the course.”

John brushes the curls back from Sherlock’s face as he gazes down at him, shaking his head and unable to keep the wonder off his lips. “You amaze me,” he says.

Sherlock looks one-thousand times happier than he did in the photos John’s seen of him with his Vancouver Silver. “I know,” Sherlock says with a smirk across his mouth. His hand slips below the waistband of John’s briefs to grab his ass, kneading the muscle, and John groans at the touch.

“You astound me,” John breathes.

Sherlock closes his eyes and tries to smirk again. “Do I?”

John’s lips brush across his cheek. “You thrill me. Fascinate me. Bewilder me . . .”

“John . . .”

“Love me . . .”

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice is thin and breathless as he strokes John’s lower back. “Yes. Always.”

“Adore me.”

“John, you are . . . of course I—”

John frowns. “Hold on a second, do those ‘extra receptors’ happen to have GPS enabled?”

Sherlock freezes, his fingers halting over John’s back even as he tries to keep a casually straight face. He tilts his head. “They might.”

“And you can see from your phone wherever I am? Anywhere I am?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘no’ . . .”

John laughs and strokes his thumb across Sherlock’s cheek. “You fucking liar. ‘Lucky guess’ my arse. You looked up that I’d gone six kilometers on your bloody phone.”

“Has that irreparably ruined your opinion of me?” Sherlock asks, a deep dramatic frown across his face.

And God, John is lying in the arms of this gorgeous man—a man who can powerfully soar across the snow like the most graceful, beautiful thing John’s ever seen. The man who looked at John nervously sitting alone on the side of a mountain, watching the normal skiers all whoop down the slope without him. The man who skied right up to him, his free curls flying in the wind, and said, “ _I’ll race you, soldier,_ ” right before flashing John a wink, pulling down his goggles, and then pushing a sputtering John straight down the slope on his monoski for the first time. Utterly without warning. The man who followed immediately behind in his swerving wake, calling out, “ _Ski! I’m right behind you. You won’t fall. Just ski!_ ” as if he hadn’t just pushed John off a mountain without even telling him his name.

John looks into Sherlock’s waiting eyes, letting him see the bright sheen across his own. “Nothing could ever ruin that,” John whispers, and then he kisses him, those beautiful full lips which taste like snow. Which taste like home and warmth and flying and life. Which taste nothing like cold sand. Nothing like black stars.

Sherlock sighs into John’s mouth, snaking his fingers through John’s hair as their bodies roll together, rustling across the sheets. Heat crackles across John’s skin, throbbing in his thighs, and he licks Sherlock’s mouth, nips at his sweet tongue, hums and breathes and glides across his lips, thrilling at the deep press of Sherlock’s chest against his own as he inhales, shivering across his scalp. 

He could drown in Sherlock’s body. Hunker down in his bones and let Sherlock carry him into the sky, soar with him across the earth. Wrap himself inside Sherlock’s skin so John can see the world through his brimming, piercing eyes. So John can finally see the mountains from the very top of the tallest slope. So John can _fly_ , just like he’d flown down that mountain for the first time with that then-unknown skier behind him, whooping for John when he finally got the hang of the monoski and soared across the ice, the wind back in his hair. Amazed tears in his eyes. 

Sherlock’s warm palms on his shoulders briefly pull John back from their kiss, just as John is starting to roll wet pants of hot air across Sherlock’s tongue. Sherlock closes his eyes, scrunching his nose, and John knows that look so well it fills him all over again with hot emotion—that he of all people on earth could be allowed to know someone so intimately, as if Sherlock’s mind was sewn straight into his own muscles. As if Sherlock’s right leg was connected straight through to his own, not letting him fall.

And Sherlock’s still looking up at him with an apology on his face, and John can feel that Sherlock is still completely soft where he’s pressed into John’s hip, and John kisses right next to Sherlock’s worried eye with a quiet hum.

“I know that look,” John says, softly so Sherlock knows he doesn’t mind.

But Sherlock’s eyes sink even more. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . you know I can’t focus, when—”

“Gorgeous man,” John breathes as he shifts so his growing erection isn’t pressed against Sherlock’s skin. “I know.” He kisses him again, and Sherlock clings to him, so forcefully John almost thinks that Sherlock is grateful, as if he expected John to be offended and storm away. Even after all this time.

John strokes his smooth jaw, kissing along the bone. “I know, I know.”

“You know I love to hold you.”

“Ridiculous man, I know.”

“I would . . . I would do anything . . . I just can’t—”

John kisses his mouth. “Beautiful man, I know.”

Sherlock gives him a soft smile when John pulls away, the shining blue back in his bright eyes. “Do you have to be anywhere else today?”

John shakes his head. “My body’s done for the day. I’m whipped.”

Sherlock fixes him with a sharp look. “And you’re still officially in LW-2 class? Got your signed piece of paper and everything?”

John huffs even as he grins. “Knew you would figure that out.”

“I appreciate you giving me challenges now and again to stretch my mental faculties.” 

“I’m sorry,” John sighs. “I don’t know why I didn’t say.”

Sherlock nods. “Greg was worried.”

“Why didn’t you just tell him where I was?”

“Wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“It shouldn’t have even been a bloody secret in the first place.”

Sherlock shakes his head and taps his hip. “There’s no ‘should have’ or ‘shouldn’t have.’ Greg could use some excitement every now and again. Now come on.” He scrunches John’s tense shoulders once with his palms. “You’re sore—I can feel it. Let me rub you out for a bit.”

John rolls over gratefully onto his stomach without protest, shifting to yank off his shirt and wincing at the sharp throb through his shoulders. He feels Sherlock step off the bed and hears the dressing gown fall to the floor. 

“I assume you’ve got your relaxant somewhere in this horribly unfashionable bag?”

“It’s a backpack. It’s not supposed to be fashionable. But yes.”

He closes his eyes and listens to the familiar sound of Sherlock popping open the cap, rubbing the cream to warm it up on his long fingers and smooth palms. His limbs start to relax just from the sound alone, and John’s bones melt into the thin mattress at the soft smell of the cream filling the warm air in the small room.

Sherlock straddles over his left leg in his usual spot and settles his hands firmly on John’s lower back. A groan rolls through John’s lips immediately upon his touch.

“You’re going to zap me of my determination to massage you more creatively if just putting my hands on you makes you groan like that.”

John grins into Sherlock’s pillow where one of his lost curls tickles his cheek. “Then I’ll groan even louder when you get more creative,” he mumbles.

“Then this could quickly turn into another activity.”

“Hmm. Save it for later. With Greg.”

“Are you harboring ideas?”

“What do you think I got off to last night when my roommate was in the shower down the hall?”

Sherlock chuckles under his breath. “I’ll save up my sexual energy, then.”

John reaches back briefly to touch Sherlock’s wrist, halting the massage with a quick intake of breath. 

“Just you being there is enough, you know,” John whispers, suddenly desperately earnest. “You there with us.”

There’s a soft, appreciative hum behind him. A brief kiss into his hair. “I know, John.”

And as Sherlock’s hands make their way competently up the muscles of his back, kneading out the tense knots with the heels of his palms, it’s as if the pressure of Sherlock’s fingers pushes the words straight up into John’s mouth, humming behind his ribs, and John turns his head even more to the side and out of the pillow so he can clearly talk.

“About Greg . . .” John says.

Sherlock digs his thumbs into John’s shoulder blades. “He’s very enamored by your new level of fitness,” Sherlock says out of nowhere.

John laughs, surprised and his train of thought forgotten. “How do you know that?”

Sherlock huffs through his nose. “A little trick I’ve learned called ‘looking at his face’. Plus he got himself off last night while I told him about you holding him down.”

“Me holding him down?”

“Fucking him. He couldn’t throw you off. And your arms were bulging.”

“I was fucking him? How—”

“You were standing by the side of the bed, using your leg. There was more to the narrative but that’s the gist. I deleted the details.”

Heat flashes across John’s skin with a tingling burst as Sherlock briefly grips his biceps. John flexes on purpose, expanding into Sherlock’s palms, and Sherlock’s breath falters for a moment before he quickly resumes the normal massage.

John squints open his eye and looks up at Sherlock’s halo of curls around his face. “And you mean to tell me you aren’t?” John whispers with a smirk. “Enamored?”

To his surprise, Sherlock doesn’t make a joke back, but leans down and presses his lips to the back of John’s left shoulder. He trails his lips and a hint of his tongue across Orion’s raised arm through the center of his back. “You are incredibly handsome,” Sherlock breathes, in a tone of voice that is shockingly earnest across John’s skin. “I’ve not escaped being enamored.”

“Guess that makes the months out there worth it, then,” John whispers.

Sherlock kisses his spine before resuming his massage. “I hope you know what I mean when I say that nothing could make it worth it.”

Something pulls in John’s chest where it’s pressed against Sherlock’s warm, soap-smelling sheets. He swallows hard. “I think I know what you mean,” he finally whispers back. 

Long minutes pass, filled with soft grunts and deep breathing. John basks in the waves of pleasure spreading across his back from Sherlock’s touch, humming at the blissfully firm press of his hands down the tense line of his spine, before he hazily remembers what he’d been trying to say before.

“But about Greg . . .” he starts again. He swallows, suddenly self-conscious for speaking about him so openly without him being there, as if Greg would still be able to hear him wherever he is in a meeting room and burn with embarrassment in front of all the other coaches. 

Sherlock hums in question, and John moans at a particularly strong stroke of Sherlock’s hands.

“He looked exhausted yesterday,” John finally says.

Sherlock sighs as his thumbs knead into the back of John’s thighs, not even hesitating as his right thumb travels over the raised lines of John’s scars. Sherlock takes a long time to answer. “I know.”

“But it’s not just that, he . . .” John gasps as Sherlock moves both of his hands to his right leg, pressing hard along the sore muscle as the cream sends a tingling burn across his skin. He uses the few seconds to collect his thoughts, then clears his throat and tries again. “You know he . . . I think he was shocked when people recognized him yesterday. Like he didn’t expect . . . like he thought they all would have just . . .”

To his surprise, Sherlock doesn’t jump in and tease him for not completing a sentence. Nor does he scoff and say something along the lines of, “ _Greg’s an idiot if he thought the Winter Olympics wouldn’t remember the face of Rossignol Skis. What a silly moron. I can’t believe we even like him._ ”

Instead Sherlock just hums a long, deep note, serious and sad, as if the same thought had already run through his own mind before. “I know,” he finally says again in a wavering voice. Sherlock’s hands pause right over John’s ribs. John can feel his fingers trembling, and there’s an odd tension of held breath in the room.

“I think he’s in pain.” Sherlock whispers.

Something punches through John’s chest, and he breathes out hard. “Christ, his knee?”

“No . . . well, yes. That. Always that.” 

Sherlock suddenly leans down so his forehead is pressed into John’s back, draping himself over John’s body with his curls fanning out across his skin. 

The air in the room changes, and John’s entire body suddenly thrums with the wet breaths coming from Sherlock’s mouth. The shaking in Sherlock’s limbs. John reaches back behind his head to place his fingertips in Sherlock’s curls.

“What is it, love?” John breathes.

Sherlock gently shakes his head against John’s back, inhaling and exhaling in a slow, careful rhythm. 

“He’s in pain,” he says again, his voice sounding utterly torn apart and lost. And John can’t even get his throat to work to say anything back, to ask what Sherlock could possibly mean, or if they’re potentially thinking the same thing, before Sherlock sighs and kisses the center of Orion for a long, long time. Long enough that John’s eyes start to droop closed, and Sherlock’s soft lips against his back feel absolutely nothing like freezing sand.

“Stay here with me,” Sherlock whispers. “We’ll meet up with him for dinner.”

John’s already half-asleep by the time he remembers to nod yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French shit:  
> T’étais où? : colloquial 'where have you been?'  
> Comme un quoi? : like a what?  
> le petit-déjeuner : breakfast  
> mon Coeur : my heart 
> 
> It's not important to the ultimate plot whether you can fully picture and understand John's process of getting on his normal-walking-around prosthesis, but if you're curious and want to have a mental image, I used [THIS VIDEO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq890DFQh5Y/) as a basic reference. In my head, John has a slightly shorter residual limb than this kind dude, since John's amputation is the result of trauma, and I know from obsessive Youtube watching that this man had a planned amputation, but that doesn't matter here.
> 
> Please appreciate that my Google targeted advertising now 100% thinks I'm a recent above-knee amputee who is super concerned about a) qualifying for the Paralympics and b) having sex again as soon as possible. Who knows how long it'll take me to un-train it . . .
> 
> I made up Corporal Johnson and his position on the committee (I also largely made up such an official committee), but there are a ton of veterans from all countries in the Paralympics, so it's not too far of a reach. It's also not totally realistic that he salutes John like that indoors, but, let's just say he was overly enthusiastic.
> 
> I know I haven't been responding to individual comments :( But your kind feedback on this fic makes me leap up into the air with joy and want to type until my fingers fall off. All my deepest thanks! It really means so much!
> 
> Next (2) chapters: We finally check back in with our beloved Sherlock, and everyone's a bit tense on their final night before the madness begins with the Opening Ceremony . . .


	6. Your Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!
> 
> My intrepid beta bakerstmel honestly worked miracles with this ex-dumpster-fire of a chapter and we all need to build an altar of her in our closets and bow down to it three times a day.
> 
> Listen to "Your Eyes" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UEnZNuxEUA/)
> 
> Enjoy!

_8 February 2018, 6:51 pm_

 

“If anyone at this table says the words ‘Opening Ceremony’ one more time I am getting up and leaving.”

John eyes Sherlock’s full plate with a raised brow. “You haven’t even eaten anything yet.”

Sherlock grips his fork harder, silently daring John to challenge him back. “Exactly.”

Greg sighs beside him from where they all sit crammed at a table in the farthest, most inconspicuous corner of the massive athletes’ and coaches’ dining hall. “Sherlock, _pour la dernière fois,_ it is an _honor_ to walk in the—”

“Don’t say the words until he at least eats a piece of chicken. I’m begging you.”

Sherlock smirks when Greg immediately shuts his mouth, rubbing a hand across his jaw. Then Sherlock notices how it looks like Greg hasn’t shaved in over two days, how the grey circles under his eyes have darkened since just that morning, how his face looks uncharacteristically thin, and a pang of guilt slithers its way through his chest, settling in his throat and making it impossible for him to eat anything at all.

Still, he picks up his fork and raises the bite of chicken to his lips, not sure which person at the table he’s even doing it for. He chews his bite for nearly a minute before swallowing it down with a dry gag.

John’s left foot briefly strokes his calf under the table. “Thank you for enduring that incredible hardship,” he says, voice practically dripping onto the table with sarcasm. “I’ll let the Paralympics know that you should qualify to compete in Beijing in four years. The featurette would inspire a generation.” 

Then John turns to Greg. “Now you can tell him about how he needs to fucking walk in the fucking Opening Ceremony all the fuck you want.”

Sherlock immediately starts to rise just as John says the two dreaded words. He makes it two inches out of his seat when John calmly sets down his fork, looks up from his plate, and levels Sherlock with a look that can only be described as the ‘ _are you really sure you want to fuck with Group Captain Watson?_ ’ look.

Sherlock hovers in a squat. 

John raises one brow, just a little, puts the polish on his perfect glare, and Sherlock’s arse hits the seat with a dull thud. 

God, but Sherlock loves that look. Adores it. The way it snaps through his fingers and curls his spine to attention, flashing across his unsuspecting skin with a shivering heat. It makes him want to stand up and dash across the dining hall, causing chaos in his wake, just so John will follow him in his calm, unwavering stride and give him that look again, and again, and again, until Sherlock’s on his knees on the wet pavement in a dark Village alleyway with John’s cock in his mouth, full and stuffed down his throat, and John is looking down at him like that in the dangerous shadows, thrusting his hips, grasping Sherlock’s hair so he won’t make a sound, telling him he should have just stayed at the table, that he’s absolutely impossible, incorrigible—

Dammit. John’s smirking at him. He never should have admitted to him in a moment of inexcusable weakness, midway through a fourth tumblr of hot, crackling whiskey, that on those rare times when Sherlock absolutely _has_ to masturbate in order to get the bloody thing over with and move on with his day, he chooses to close his eyes and think of Group Captain John Watson. 

He thinks of him with his hands held effortlessly behind his back, his feet spread apart, his chin high and his brow raised and his steady hands in control of a cockpit and that look. That _look_.

Which usually leads to a pair of deep brown eyes swooping in to join the steely blue. And Sherlock ends up tingling from the soles of his feet to his scalp as he thinks about the way Greg Lestrade yells directions at him in French when Sherlock’s exhausted and sweaty, gasping for breath at the bottom of the slope. The way Greg’s silver hair reflects the pure white of the snow, and the dark focus of his earnest eyes, the deep rasp in his throat . . .

Dammit, _dammit_. Now Greg’s smirking at him, too. It was just _one bloody time_ he got an erection when Greg was yelling at him, probably after he did something completely justified but which Greg took for blatant disregard for his coaching. Sherlock’s deleted the finer details. And it was just _once_ , before they were even together like that, and yet the man cannot and will not let him live it down.

Damn them both.

“If you think all this smirking is going to make me want to do what you say tomorrow evening, I can assure you it will have the exact opposite effect.”

Greg closes his eyes and points his hand through the air to enunciate each word, holding his head with the other hand. “ _Sherlock, il faut que tu putain de participe à cette putain de cérémonie_.”

“Just because you lead the pack and enjoyed your frolics with the flag doesn’t mean that that pointless display of nonsense was any fun for the rest of the nameless faces trudging behind you.”

“You of all people are the opposite of nameless,” John mutters. 

“It’s not like it’s a _requirement_.”

John glares at him. “It is to us.”

“But _why_!” Sherlock groans, loud enough that the nearest athletes a few empty tables over jerk their heads up from their meals to stare. He leans back down over the table and lowers his voice. “Why can’t I just watch it with the two of you? I’ll even solemnly swear to clap at the appropriate moments. Or better yet, _none_ of us even be there in the first place. The Village will be empty. Greg can fulfill his fantasy of having sex outside—”

John immediately kicks his shin under the table and quickly looks around. He lowers his voice to a hiss over the table. “ _Sherlock_ , seriously, we’re in public—”

“There would be nobody around, we could be right in the main courtyard—”

“Do not think for one moment,” Greg forcefully whispers, his palms flat on the table, “that you will be relaxing with us if you do not go to this _putain de cérémonie_. You will be alone and sad and John and I will fulfill _your_ fantasy of having sex outside wearing our _skis_ in the middle of the mountains without you.”

Sherlock scoffs. “You wouldn’t.”

John angrily swallows a huge bite of chicken and rice, keeping his voice terrifyingly low and sharp. “We would.”

“You _wouldn’t_ , because you’d need someone limber enough to bottom while straddling in skis for the fantasy to be properly fulfilled, and your limb won’t bend that way, and your knee wouldn’t be able to sustain it, and neither of you even enjoy bottoming enough to put up with doing it in the freezing cold in the first pla—”

“ _Putain,_ what happened to you this afternoon to make you like this?”

John angrily chugs his entire glass of water. “I’ve no idea. He was perfectly reasonable all afternoon.”

“You were asleep for most of the afternoon.”

“Right. And you let me sleep. So you were perfectly reasonable.”

Sherlock forgets he’s supposed to be on a hunger strike and shoves a huge mouthful of food into his mouth to silence his growling stomach, then remembers the strike halfway through his bite and goes to spit it out. John stomps on his foot so hard under the table that he chokes on his too-big swallow. This leads to an embarrassing round of choking, during which Greg pats his back a little purposefully too hard, and Sherlock looks away from the two of them and their little _smirks_ across the table while he chugs back some water and wipes the tears from his eyes.

He gasps when he finally sucks in a full breath, knowing full well he can’t just continue now as if nothing has happened, but trying damn well anyway just to prove his point.

“You speak as if I would normally wake you up from a nap instead of letting you sleep.”

John stares at him. “That is exactly what you would do, yes.”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

Greg idly bobs his tea bag in his already over-steeped tea. “ _Pourquoi_? Because you are bored. Because you have no one to be listening to you. Because you want to go skiing at three o’clock in the morning. Because you want us to make you the dinner at three o’clock in the morning. Should I continue?”

Sherlock slumps down in his seat, every emotion known to man currently flooding through his system, absolutely overwhelming his skin until all he can feel is _hot hot hot_ and _sweat sweat sweat_ and _burning_ , and Greg seems absolutely exhausted, and John’s looking at Greg like Greg’s unshaven jaw is the saddest thing he’s ever seen, and it’s all Sherlock’s fault.

As usual.

“You make me out to be some sort of untrained child,” Sherlock finally grumbles, pushing his food around with his fork.

Greg glances at Sherlock’s fingers clutching the fork as it creates a mountain of rice. “Are you looking at yourself?”

Sherlock clenches his jaw, and his neck is _prickling prickling prickling_ and his toes are squirming in his shoes. He destroys Rice Mountain, then sets down his fork on the table with a dramatic flourish. “All I’m saying is,” he says in a careful, even voice, “it is an irrational waste of time to spend an entire day at the stadium two days before my prelims just to walk in a gaudy parade to terrible music for _thirty seconds_ when I could be spending that day training on the empty course, or in the gym, or with you.”

“But we want to _watch_ you in that gaudy parade with terrible music for thirty seconds,” John says, running his hands through his hair. “It’s your Olympics, and it’s your Opening Ceremony, and we want to see you down there being recognized for it.”

Sherlock wants to immediately open his mouth and ask why no one is incessantly demanding that John walk in the parade for _his_ Opening Ceremony, but then he remembers what happened the last time he brought up anything related to the Paralympics. He also remembers the harrowing look on John’s face when Greg had asked him on the plane in a whisper if he knew anyone to walk with in his Parade of Nations, and John had simply looked out the window, one hand over his mouth and the other rubbing across his metal knee, and he’d said under his breath, “ _You know, I don’t think I’ll be there, babe,_ ” in a voice so soft the memory of it still cuts like a blade through Sherlock’s chest.

“Sherlock?” John sighs. “Sherlock, are you even listening to us?”

Sherlock closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. John’s tone of voice is one Sherlock’s heard him use once or twice before with unruly children horseplaying around on a ski slope, usually right before one of them yells, “ _woah cool!_ ” at his leg while another one runs away through the snow in terror. 

Sherlock opens his eyes again to catch the tail end of That Look between Greg and John—the look that makes him feel like they’re his put-upon parents at their absolute wits end, wondering whether to ignore him or publicly scold him or both.

He cannot _stand_ that look. Not tonight. Not ever.

That look makes him _hate_ them—how they can automatically be on the same page about everything every second of the day. How they can just look at each other and _know_ , as if some magic bond was formed between them those three weeks when they were _young_ and _in love_ and having a grand sexual awakening in the dark corners of a random ski lodge. Some magic bond that makes it so they can flip a switch and silently communicate all the ways in which Sherlock is currently failing.

And that look makes him hate himself, more than he can even express, because Sherlock Holmes has somehow gotten the two bravest men on the planet to kiss _him_ , to say out loud that they love him, to want to sit and watch the ridiculous Opening Ceremony for the sole purpose of seeing him walk around like an idiot for thirty seconds, and Sherlock can’t even enjoy a good thing for three whole minutes without going and ruining it.

He watches Greg give John the look that means, “ _Leave it to me, I’ll try and bring it up somehow during practice when he’s more at ease._ ” He watches John give Greg the look back that means, “ _I’m sorry this is always falling to you, that you have to have all the tough conversations._ ”

It makes Sherlock suddenly want to cry. He bites down on his lip and shoves another bite of dry chicken into his mouth.

Somehow, him eating without prompting makes the tension at the table soften. Greg briefly puts a hand on his leg under the table. “We will revisit this later, _ouais_?” he says in a gentle voice. It’s the gentle voice Greg uses when he doesn’t want Sherlock to scamper away from an unwanted conversation like a skittish animal. It’s not the gentle voice Greg uses when they’re in bed, when Sherlock’s cheek is pressed into the soft hair on Greg’s chest, and Greg is surrounding him, holding him together, telling him he skied so well, and was so strong, and was so beautiful across the snow. Calling him _love_.

And even though Sherlock wants to rise to his feet and yell, “ _No! Have it out now! Just get it over with and bully me some more so I don’t have to wait in suspense!_ ” Even though he wants to storm off from the table just to feel something else in his feet other than prickling and squirming and sweat, Sherlock briefly squeezes Greg’s hand back and mutters, “Okay.”

And God, it’s worth it for the look John gives him across the table. Like he just hung the sun. Like he just made the most incredible, humble, selfless compromise ever known to man. Like everything good in the world is woven between Sherlock’s curls, and formed in his hands. 

It’s the look John gave him right after John finished yelling at him for pushing him down a bloody cliff with no warning, because he could have _crashed into a fucking tree,_ and he could have _lost another leg_ or _bloody died_. After Sherlock had nearly levitated up into the sky and yelled back, “ _But you just skied! You did it! Wasn’t it fantastic?!_ ” 

It’s the look John gave him right after that, when John had suddenly choked up and whispered, “ _Yes. It was fantastic,_ ” just as Sherlock ripped off his glove with his teeth and stuck out his hand and said, “ _Sherlock Holmes. Welcome back from Afghanistan. Come race me again._ ”

“How were your meetings?” he hears John ask, having no idea whether they’ve continued talking to him in the last few minutes and finally just given up, or if only mere seconds have passed.

He watches Greg’s body grow carefully coordinated and still—the ‘on camera casual’ stance Sherlock’s watched him do countless times. He wonders if John has noticed it too, risks a quick glance at John’s face, and _ah_ , he most certainly has.

Greg finishes chewing and nods. “ _Pas trop mal_. Going over the schedules and the rules again, as if I have not already read the one thousand emails.”

John huffs. “As if you haven’t already done it a million times yourself.”

Greg shoots him an odd grin, some of the rigidness of his spine melting away. “That, too.”

“Did they tell you anything I don’t already know or can’t work out myself?” Sherlock asks.

Greg huffs out a loud laugh up at the ceiling. “ _Mon dieu, non_.”

Tension continues to melt from the table. John rolls his neck to stretch his shoulder, Sherlock creates Rice Mountain again before turning it into a volcano with a piece of steamed broccoli, and Greg finally pulls the bag out of his disgustingly black tea. Then Greg nods at John. “How was your first time on the snow this afternoon?”

Oh look, the tension is back as if it had never really left. 

Sherlock watches John’s fist and jaw carefully clench, wonders if Greg has noticed and steals a quick glance. _Ah,_ , he hasn’t.

John rubs the back of his neck. “Sore, mostly,” he says. “Didn’t realize how much the days off from traveling would affect me.”

Greg nods in sympathy. “You will have plenty of time to get back into the slide of things—”

“The _swing_ of things,” Sherlock murmurs.

“—before your prelims. You know that?”

John grins quickly before hunching over his elbows onto the table. “Yeah. I know.”

“And you?” Greg asks, turning to Sherlock. “What did you do without me all these hours?”

“I wept and wrote you a tear-stained love letter,” Sherlock says.

John giggles, the giggle he only ever does when he’s completely warm and at ease, when he isn’t in pain, or worrying about who’s looking, or who might see, and it makes the hairs on Sherlock’s forearms stand up in a tingling shiver. He sees Greg briefly beam beside him at John too, then wipes the grin from his own face before Greg turns and levels him with a hard stare.

“What did you actually do?” Greg tries again.

Sherlock opens his mouth to answer and suddenly stops short. 

What can he possibly say? 

Should he explain that he walked back to his room after he and Greg left breakfast and immediately bent over his phone and hacked into the internal Paralympics schedule so he could figure out where the bloody hell John was? How he stared at the clock from 8 am until 8 forty-five wondering and wondering and _wondering_ whether the strange nurse’s hands on John’s body were too cold? Imagining how John would be closing his eyes, trying to breathe through it, steady and brave, all alone lying flat on his back on an exam table?

Or maybe he could tell Greg about how it felt to receive the text he _never_ wanted to receive ever again for the rest of his life just a handful of restless hours later. The heart-stopping terror of two nonsense words—words which had caused Sherlock to sprint outside barefoot across the Village, as if that even would have helped John at all, before he finally came to his senses and forced himself to walk back inside. How he’d paced his very warm room and clutched his phone after telling John how to get into his building, forcing himself not to ask him every two minutes whether he was still sure he could make it back. How he’d imaged John’s small, crumpled body half-buried in snow, until he finally heard John’s hand on the doorknob and casually threw himself down onto his bed, reminding himself to _not look at John_ when John quietly stepped inside.

Sherlock suddenly senses a pair of eyes on him from across the table. He glances up from his plate, and John gives him a brief, pleading look, his hand clenched into a tight fist, before John swallows hard and looks away.

Sherlock shrugs and turns back to Greg. “Nothing.”

“ _Vraiment? Rien?_ ”

Sherlock shrugs again and divides Rice Mountain into two. “You know I’d already done a workout before breakfast, and the slopes were closed. And then John took up my whole bed sleeping the rest of the day. Like a _log_.”

Greg rolls his eyes. “ _Merci_ for the vocabulary lesson. I forgot already about your selfless sacrifice all the afternoon—letting John sleep.”

Sherlock’s cheeks burn when John’s eyes briefly glow at him in silent thanks, then he steals Greg’s water glass even though his own is still full. “I’ll tell them to add that distressing part of my life to my Paralympics featurette,” Sherlock says.

John laughs. “So that’s what you did while I was asleep? Sat there and contemplated the insurmountable hardships of your life?”

Greg laughs, too, and the two of them seem to accept the little huff and eye roll Sherlock gives. They continue on with their boring dinner in amiable silence, inanely commenting every now and again on some useless piece of Olympics news.

Sherlock stares at the far wall and tunes out every murmur of noise and thinks.

He _hadn’t_ sat there while John was asleep contemplating the insurmountable hardships of his life. Instead he’d spent the first twenty minutes just watching John sleep, the never-ceasing rises and falls of John’s chest under the sheet Sherlock had pulled over his bare skin. He’d thought about that night he’d woken up in London to the sound of someone hopping. Someone crying in the kitchen. How he’d sat awake watching John sleep that night, too—once they finally coaxed him onto the couch and under a blanket. How he’d slipped a piece of paper saying, “ _Text me ‘vatican cameos’_ ” into John’s wallet the next morning with no further explanation.

And after those twenty minutes of assuring himself that John Watson was warm and safe and alive, he’d researched everything he could find on his phone to try to figure out what the hell had gone wrong—what could have possibly happened between 8 a.m. and noon to make John bend over in the snow and feel absolutely certain that he was going to die. Researched everybody involved in John’s classification that morning—the nurse and the other athletes scheduled for the same block of time and the committee and _ah_. 

A Corporal Johnson. British Army. Veterans’ Liaison Officer. And Sherlock had dug through his entire online history, every one of his social media posts going all the way back to the man’s time in uni, until he finally found a Facebook post from almost six years ago to today, a link to the news article about the RAF pilot who miraculously survived a nighttime take down in the middle of the desert. The pilot who’d been on his way back into the firefight to save the last few men stranded in the compound outside Kandahar. Who radioed his squadron to stay the course when they came under attack, then flew away all alone from the rest of their planes in his slower helicopter to draw the fire away from his men. Who’d been found by the Grace of God next to his wreckage right at dawn, nearly two hours after the crash. Who was in the hospital clinging to life, and needed all of Great Britain’s hopes and prayers to somehow pull through. 

Corporal Johnson’s post had sung this man’s praises, had declared that _this man_ was the reason he had just decided to enlist in the military post-uni. Sherlock had nearly thrown his phone out the window in frustration when he imagined how this Corporal Johnson must have done something irreparably _stupid_ in the meeting with John that morning. How he must have thanked John, or called him Group Captain, or even bloody _saluted_ him like some idiot who still salutes indoors.

But Sherlock can’t sit at a table in the farthest corner of the Village dining hall and tell John Watson and Greg Lestrade that that’s how he chose to spend his afternoon three days before his prelims. Because then Greg would get that frown on his forehead that means he’s secretly worried Sherlock won’t actually end up winning the Gold. And because then John would never text him ‘ _vatican cameos_ ’ ever again, even if he really was dying on his hands and knees. All because he wouldn’t want Sherlock to find it at all inconvenient. And John would choke or pass out or die, and Greg would never get to kiss John Watson again, and it would all be Sherlock’s fault.

So Sherlock decides he might as well add this to the ever-growing list of things he cannot tell John Watson or Greg Lestrade. Like how John’s face when he finally stepped into Sherlock’s room that afternoon had looked like it did that first time Sherlock ever saw him sitting alone on the side of a mountain, clenching his hands around his unused outrigger ski poles. His face had been angry, and frustrated, and wistful, and in pain, and it had been such a gloriously fascinating puzzle, a beautiful enigma, that Sherlock skied away from Coach Lestrade mid-practice without a word, leaving him behind in the snow in his boots and calling after Sherlock that Sherlock could bloody sleep out in the snow that night if he kept skiing away—see if he cared.

Sherlock can’t tell either of them how his heart had raced at the pure strength and restraint and _fury_ of that twist across John’s grimacing mouth, at the delicately held balance that made up the carefully rigid line of John’s spine. How Sherlock’s mind had buzzed, how his fingers had itched to catalogue every inch of this soldier’s tightly-covered-up skin. 

How he hadn’t wanted his mind to be so quiet anymore. How he’d wanted to _know_.

He can’t tell them how he lay in bed in the lodge that night, memorizing every word of that infamous news article, every pixel of every high-definition photo, and how he’d quickly turned off his phone when Greg stepped out of the bathroom and crawled into their bed, pulling Sherlock into his arms with a warm sigh.

Greg, his Gregory, who was familiar, and sturdy, and intricate, and _known_ , like the trunk of the oldest tree in the most beloved forest, like the marrow in Sherlock’s own vertebrae, bone by bone. Like the way the snowmelt curled off into steady little streams across the slate mountains and moss, and sunk down into the desperate earth, and made everything fresh and whole and strong. Who was the only person on earth who knew exactly how Sherlock took his tea. Who was his entire _world_.

Who didn’t deserve to be hugging an ex-drug addict to his chest while that ex-drug addict was busy trying to make sure he remembered every line of a news article about an ex-RAF pilot who was confusing and unknown and and terrifying and _new_.

He can’t tell Greg how he lay awake that entire night shivering under the covers, fighting with himself not to turn over and ask Greg if he still remembered the taste of John’s lips, if he could describe to him every detail of the whisper of John’s breath, if he could kiss him the way he’d once kissed John Watson just so Sherlock could understand, so he could cross it off his list and file it all away and _move on_ —back to his fantasy life where he was loved by Greg Lestrade. Where he came home each night to Greg’s strong, open arms, and it was everything Sherlock never deserved, and everything that made him Sherlock Holmes, and so much more than enough.

Sherlock blinks. He realizes that two sets of eyes are on him now, both of them with mildly concerned raised brows.

He shoves another bite of food into his mouth, trying to buy enough time to figure out what the hell he just missed, the he shivers down his spine when Greg sneaks a hand on his thigh under the table.

“ _Alors_?” Greg asks, in his beautiful voice. The voice written inside Sherlock’s veins. Inscribed across his skis.

Sherlock swallows, then lifts up his hand in a silent question. “ _Alors_?”

Greg shakes his head, even as Sherlock catches the hints of a grin at the corners of his mouth. “We were just asking you if you ate any lunch?”

Sherlock shoves down another bite of tasteless, mealy mush, hating the fact that he knows his cheeks have turned pink. “Must have slipped my mind.”

He sits there chewing while Greg and John share That Look _again_ , as if the two of them somehow believe that Sherlock becomes momentarily blind every time they do it. The rage starts to bubble up in his fingertips again, burning through his chest in a rumbling roar, when he notices . . .

There’s a softness there. Deep lines of care etched around John’s gentle mouth. Grey circles from sleepless nights under Greg’s eyes from staying up worrying about Sherlock’s training. The two of them look at each other, silently communicating whether Sherlock has taken care of himself enough to win Gold. 

Suddenly the look doesn’t fill him with rage anymore.

Sherlock shoves down three more bites, clearing half his plate in a handful of seconds, then pushes it away just as Greg downs the rest of his disgusting tea and slaps his palms on the edge of the table that way he always does when he’s about to stand up.

“ _On y va?_ ”

An odd look passes across John’s face, something like sadness or regret, before he stands up too and stretches out his back. “Right, yeah,” John says. “You both should get your sleep for the next few days. I’ll just—”

“Ah, no, you are coming with us,” Greg says. He points at Sherlock. “ _Oui_ , I said ‘us’. _Toi aussi_.”

Sherlock frowns, trying to figure out what meeting he forgot about, what pointless, stupid, unnecessary Olympics ceremony is about to take place which he’d completely blocked out, but then he takes in the nervous line of Greg’s shoulders, the depth in his eyes, and he realizes . . .

Oh. Something personal. Some sort of previously secret errand—one Greg wants to share now with him. With them.

Something tugs just behind Sherlock’s sternum, making his chest tight, and even though Sherlock wants nothing more than to go back to his room and block out the world and think think think think _think_ about the Jeongseon angles and turns, he looks into those familiar brown eyes and nods.

“Lead the way.”

. . .

It’s freezing. Literally.

Sherlock flips up the fur-lined hood of his jacket and pulls his muffler up over his lips and chin, hunching down in his warm layers as the wind whips down off the Jeongseon course with a howling scream. He looks over at Greg and John beside him, both of them looking completely unaffected by the cold, standing tall and strong, with their gloved hands gently resting on the freezing handrail at the bottom of the run.

They’re alone. Even the Olympics staff and course maintenance workers have left for the day, hiding out in their warm Village rooms to escape from the hissing cold and mentally preparing for tomorrow’s hectic sprint to the Opening Ceremony. The blinding pools of bright haze from the left-on stadium lights flood across the dark snow, illuminating the course with a ghostly glow and blocking out the stars above. 

He’s glad he can’t see the stars. 

They always make him think about a ripped off leg spurting blood into the black sand. The famous photo accompanying that news article of the sunrise over the dunes from the rescue helicopter cockpit, looking down at the still-smoking wreckage of an RAF helicopter with a little black speck beside it in the sand—the speck named Group Captain John H. Watson, barely alive and holding on to what they all at first thought was just another piece of wreckage. A fuel pipe or an engine blade. Certainly not a _leg_.

Sherlock shakes his head and fights down a sickening roll through his stomach. His eyes flicker to John, alive and breathing and gazing out over the snow like this mountain belongs to him, like this mountain should bloody recognize that it has Group Captain Olympic _greatness_ standing on its unworthy slopes. Sherlock idly wonders how all snow doesn’t just spontaneously melt when John Watson so much as subtly clenches his jaw, then he turns to peer through the checkerboard of pitch black and blinding light across the snow. He tracks the gates gently fluttering in the breeze as they zigzag up the course to the very top, nearly cloaked by darkness and fog.

An overwhelmingly sharp focus barrels down and consumes him, moaning across the snow with a hissing rush. He grips the freezing handrail through his gloves. Inhales the ice.

He will own this course. He will absolutely annihilate these gates, fly down them faster than any other human being alive, conquer this mountain, and it all seems so futile, so pointless looking at the lonely gates just fluttering in the breeze, a completely useless exercise in the grand scheme of the world, just an obstacle course. But it’s _his_ obstacle course, the one which replaced every other burning liquid that’s ever rushed through his veins, the one where he is glorious and alive and a fighter and the _best_.

He’s going to prove them all wrong—every single blubbering idiot who said his skiing career was ruined after he voluntarily dropped out from Sochi just three hours before the scheduled drug testing for “unspecified reasons.” 

He’s going to win for Greg, who hasn’t relaxed for one single second since they touched down in Korea. Who’s been amiably smiling for the interviews, and pushing Sherlock _faster sharper cleaner_ through the punishing snow, and studying the course in the middle of the night, and skiing along the gates watching Sherlock’s practice runs even though his knee looked painfully red and swollen last night. 

Who’s been calling Sherlock “Holmes” when they’re anywhere near earshot of another athlete all because Greg doesn’t want anyone to think he took _advantage_ of a young, directionless drug addict. As if Greg didn’t quite literally save his life when he walked up to him in the darkness of an extremely questionable bar in Sochi post-Olympics, limping hard on his bandaged knee, and told the kid who’d won Silver way back in Vancouver that he would coach him for Pyeongchang Gold if he passed a drug test every two weeks.

Sherlock will get Greg Lestrade that fifth Gold if it kills him. Whatever it takes, whatever the stakes, however much pain, he will stand up at that top gate in two bloody days and leap off into the air and ski like he never has before in his life. He will have the perfect run, the cleanest run, the _sharpest fastest neatest strongest impossible_ run, so he can dip his own head to receive the Gold on that podium and call out to Greg across the grandstands, “ _Pour toi. J’ai fait tout ça pour toi._ ”

There’s an odd sound next to him, something like a soft moan. Sherlock blinks hard out of his visualization of his route down the course and looks over to see Greg standing with his head held high and his eyes closed. His chapped lips are pursed into a straight line.

Sherlock scans his body, and he finally notices that John’s gloved hand is covering Greg’s fingers on the metal railing, and Greg makes that sound again in his throat as John strokes the back of his hand with his thumb.

And oh, what a surprise, Sherlock is the biggest idiot, _again_. 

Because here he is psyching himself up to win Gold in four days, studying and memorizing every inch of the snow, using up every precious second to prepare for his race, all so he can look at Greg Lestrade in four days and tell him that he finally has his desperately longed-for fifth Gold.

And meanwhile all Greg apparently wanted right now was for someone to hold his hand. For the person beside him to be present and _there_. Not far off lost in their head thinking about course times and angles and gates.

Stupid.

Sherlock silently watches John clutch Greg’s hand as a puff of fresh powder blows into their faces off the towering slopes. He watches Greg breathe it in deeply through his nose, watches it brush back the strands of hair from his face which had started turning silver just in time for his fortieth birthday last year.

Greg’s chest rises and falls beneath his Team France coach’s jacket in a steady rhythm, shallow and carefully controlled. He licks his lips, clears his throat, and Sherlock thinks he hears his exhale come out shaky and wet.

_Oh . . ._

John hears it, too. He shoots a quick glance at Sherlock, one which looks so out-of-place on John Watson’s face that Sherlock momentarily wonders if this isn’t all just a vivid, drug-induced dream. John’s look says, “ _You know him better than me, take the reins here,_ ” which would have made Sherlock laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of him somehow knowing Greg better than John if he wasn’t already finding it impossible to move his lips into even the faintest grin. He feels as if he’s walked out of the bustling world of the Olympics and plunged straight into a poorly attended funeral in the snow. 

And all the while Greg Lestrade keep his eyes closed in the cold, and he silently breathes in the snow of the course he’ll never get to fly down on his own.

Sherlock steps closer to Greg and crowds him with his heat, watching the way Greg’s jaw tightens when he swallows. “You do this every time,” Sherlock says, not really a question, and just barely audible over the humming wind. “Come to the course the night before Opening.”

Greg opens his eyes, and the weary sadness seems to fall away all at once from his limbs, like an ice statue shattering and a new statue beneath taking its place. He pulls his hand out from under John’s and gives Sherlock a forced, casual grin.

“ _Ouais_ , I did,” he says, carefully emphasizing the ‘did’. “It was my tradition.” 

Sherlock wonders if Greg thinks he’s fooling either of them that his eyes aren’t a bit wet, shining glossy in the eery stadium lights. Sherlock pretends not to see—sees that John is pretending, too. 

“Very romantic of you,” Sherlock says, inwardly pleased when John tries to hide an exasperatedly amused grin over Greg’s shoulder—that John has apparently approved of his tactic of response. Sherlock goes on, “You traveling out here, standing tall in the moonlight all alone with the wind in your hair. Contemplating your next victory just on the horizon. You would’ve made a fine Austen heroine if she’d ever stooped to write about winter sports.”

The poor joke makes Greg laugh for a moment, which is more than worth it, the way the floodlights briefly wash away the dark circles under his eyes when he grins. But then an odd look passes over Greg’s face, casting it once more into flickering shadow, and the wind ruffles the glinting strands of his soft hair with something like a mournful drone.

Greg licks his lips and glances between the two of them. He looks like he’s going to say something—something which is causing his brown eyes to look deep and black, and the lines around his mouth to etch into hesitant folds. Sherlock wants to turn around and scream at the entire mountain range to _be quiet_ because he wants to hear every speck of air as it leaves Greg’s mouth, just in case he whispers something in a molecule of oxygen which Sherlock won’t be able to hear over the moaning rush of the bloody wind.

But then Greg just sniffs hard against the cold, clears his throat, and shoves his hands into his pockets once more, looking everywhere but the official course.

“I know it is cold,” Greg says, his voice sounding odd and very far away.

John frowns when Greg doesn’t say anything more. Sherlock traces the worry etched around his deep blue eyes.

“Greg?”

But Greg just huffs out a foggy breath and shakes his head. “ _Désolé_ ,” Greg murmurs, shooting a pained smile down at his feet. 

Nobody moves. Sherlock wonders if the sun is about to come up over the distant peaks. If they’ve stood there that long.

When Greg finally does look up, he pins Sherlock with his gaze for a moment. The deep brown webs woven through his irises are heavy and clear, and Sherlock is surprised that the mountains don’t spontaneously avalanche at such a meaningful expression, that they don’t tumble over and bow down before the man who so effortlessly conquered them all for so many years.

He wants to beg Greg on his hands and knees to explain to him what the hell this look means—if it’s worry or concern, pride or sadness. If it’s longing, and exactly what for. He wants to plead with Greg to tell him if the look on his face is blinding pain, to confirm or deny Sherlock’s choking fear that he keeps seeing stifled misery in the lines around Greg’s mouth. Why the look on his face now is nearly indistinguishable from the way Greg had looked at him right before saying “ _je t’aime_ ” for the first time.

Sherlock’s just opening his mouth to ask his list of five thousand questions when Greg sniffs hard again and dramatically shivers in a fresh gust of icy wind.

“ _Alors_ , it is too cold for this,” Greg says in his normal, animated voice. He grins back at John and nods towards the van Greg borrowed to drive them there. “Let us get you two back to your night. I have had my moment—”

“We’re coming with you,” Sherlock hears himself say, sharp and a bit too loud. 

John frowns at him, and Greg’s eyes are glossed over with a complicated sheen. 

“You should rest, love. Your prelims—”

“We will. We’ll rest with you. In your room.”

Understanding dawns in John’s eyes over Greg’s shoulder, and John nods at him in silent agreement even as he shivers from another blast of wind.

When Greg doesn’t immediately answer, when he glances back at the ghostly, shimmering course for a few seconds too long, Sherlock finds that his throat has embarrassingly closed up.

“Please, Gregory,” he whispers, unsure why his voice is so thin and rough, why the sight of Greg staring at the empty course fills him with the same nausea he gets whenever he thinks of the photo of black-speck-John. “Let us stay with you. Just tonight.”

Greg swallows hard in the foggy light. John follows Greg’s gaze up the terrifyingly steep course, then puts a hand on his arm, not even looking around first to check who might be able to see.

“ _Allez viens_ , babe,” John says, in what Sherlock immediately knows is a purposefully bad accent.

It works. Greg breaks out in a laugh, then starts to lead the way back to the van, not once looking back at the mountain as they walk.

“What will I do with the two of you,” Greg mutters to himself up ahead of them, just as Sherlock jumps to feel John’s arm suddenly around his back, and John’s warm mouth up near his ear, whispering, “You always were a genius, you know.” 

And then, softly, “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French shit:  
> Pour la dernière fois : For the last time  
> Sherlock, il faut que tu putain de participe à cette putain de cérémonie : Sherlock, you need to fucking walk in the fucking Ceremony  
> Pourquoi : why  
> pas trop mal : not too bad  
> on y va : Shall we go?  
> toi aussi : you too  
> vraiment : really  
> rien : nothing  
> Pour toi. J’ai fait tout ça pour toi. : For you. I did it all for you.  
> désolé : sorry
> 
> \--
> 
> All my thanks for the ridiculously kind, insightful, and lovely words y'all have been leaving on each chapter. Your comments make me want to leap off the tallest slope and ski through the beautiful snow and fly. Thank you SO MUCH for leaving them.
> 
> Is now a good time to admit that I have never even touched a pair of skis? I don't think I've ever even been in the same room as a pair of skis. So much for "write what you know."
> 
> Next time: Some brief soft sexy times before the Full Olympic Madness begins. See you then!


	7. To the Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's our last little moment of fluffy peace before the Olympics madness begins.
> 
> Listen to "To the Bone" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guRJY2GGtqc/)
> 
> Enjoy :)

_8 February 2018, 11:35 p.m._

 

Sherlock takes his sweet time in the little shower attached to Greg’s room, standing with the blasting spray against his chest until it starts to turn from scalding liquid flames to just regular hot.

He takes his time primarily because it’s the first fully private shower he’s had access to in nearly three days, which has severely hampered his usual three to four shower a day policy and caused him to stare at the ceiling in the middle of the night imagining dirt and sweat crawling all over his skin like tiny spiders. 

He secondarily takes his time because the last two days of training runs and gym time and the jetlagged haze over his body have thrown his muscles into a screaming revolt without his permission. And tertiarily because he knows that Greg and John like to sit together and decompress at the end of the day like a horribly dull ninety-year-old married couple. And because Greg and John have not been truly able to do this for three long months, during which Greg tried to do it with Sherlock only once before throwing up his hands thirty seconds in and groaning, “ _Mon dieu, I would rather be talking to the air than to you_.”

In fact, they’d kicked him out of these nighttime chats about two years ago, back after one particularly fruitful session during peak training season in Chamonix, when Sherlock had taken every tiny pause in the aimless small talk to say, “ _I’m sorry, did you just ask me something? Were you mumbling? I didn’t quite catch that . . ._ ” 

Sherlock grins to himself in the shower as he thinks how that has to be his most ingenious get-me-out-of-this-conversation-forever trick to date.

He closes his eyes under the spray and imagines them now, the way the two of them look in the evenings on those rare nights back in London a handful of times a year. The way they always light a fire, and John’s pale eyelashes glow in the flickering pools of golden shadows, and Greg’s eyes look like amber honey and the glistening whiskey in their glasses. The way they move closer, closer, closer on the soft couch, drawn into each other like the tide rising higher and higher upon the shore. 

They talk about the news, and any other sport beside skiing, and something Greg read about on his phone that morning but can’t remember any interesting details from. They talk about who aches where, and curse Sherlock Holmes for being young and limber and spry. They talk about that cop show they watched on the telly a few months ago, right before they went to Austria for that competition, and did they ever finish it to find out who committed the murder? They talk about restaurants John wants to drag Sherlock to while they’re in London, or where the three of them might one day want to go for a vacation where there isn’t any snow.

And then the minutes pass, and the night grows darker, and there’s a hand on a thigh, gentle fingers through hair. And sometimes they talk about how terrified Greg was as a twenty-year-old kid right before his first Olympics. The first time John ever saw Afghanistan from a fighter jet. How Greg’s parents put him on skis before he could walk, and then accidentally taped over that footage with a fuzzy video Greg’s mom took a decade later of a huge bird she found in their front yard that she thought looked weird. How John accidentally called his first Group Captain ‘dad’ his second day at the base, and how he had to run thirty laps and then clean three other new recruits’ cockpits just to make up for it.

Sherlock can practically hear their voices now in his head, effortlessly weaving through the rush of humming water. How the two of them always talk just loud enough that they know Sherlock can hear them from wherever he’s run off to, whether he’s stretching from the day of training, or studying an upcoming competition course, or working on his stacks of blueprints for improved poles or skis. 

And what those two silly men probably don’t realize, maybe never will realize, is that the reason Sherlock long ago got himself out of these conversations is precisely _because_ he likes to run off to a corner and listen. 

He likes to close his eyes in the other room and track the intimate changes of their voices, how they speak quieter as they gradually draw nearer on the couch, imagining legs tucked around thighs, arms across shoulders, lips hovering near ears. Listening to John’s voice get raspy and deep with each swallow of whiskey, and Greg’s velvet accent become more and more unspooled—streams of rolling Frech which John can’t even pretend to understand, but which make him laugh, then sigh, then groan when Greg repeats those hushed words into his ear. The warm corner of his jaw.

Sherlock likes imagining who just kissed who where when he finally hears the soft peck of gentle, wet lips, the deep inhale at the end of the long day, the whispered chuckle, the contented sigh.

He likes waiting for the breathtaking, inevitable moment when one of them repeats something funny or infuriating Sherlock said earlier that day to get the other to giggle. When one of them tells the other how they want to see Sherlock lying in their arms. God, he looks beautiful against you. His curls on your skin. Let me see you kiss his neck. Let me see you hold him. _Mon dieu_.

When they finally call his name to come join them, to call it a night. We miss you, love. Come here. Please.

And even if one day John and Greg figure out this reason, even if they already secretly know, Sherlock knows for certain that they will _never_ guess the second, more important reason he got himself banned from these nighttime chats two years ago. Because Sherlock knows himself well enough to know that it would only take five minutes of whiskey and crackling fires and hands on thighs for him to open his big mouth and let all their secrets pour out—the ones he’s been told, and the ones he’s only privately inferred. 

He would let them all out in an endless, choking stream—the deserts John dreams about when he wakes up in tears, or the fact Greg cried after the last time he tried to call his mother—and then everyone would know far too much too quickly, and Greg and John would feel sad just _looking_ at each other, and the two of them would never murmur by the firelight with whiskey in their hands ever again. 

No, Sherlock would sit down, pushing them apart, sliding cool wool between their warm skin, and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from blurting out _vatican cameos_ , or the fact Greg checked the killed-in-action lists until he was twenty-three.

Then they would never again call Sherlock to come and join. _Allez viens_. Beautiful man. It’s getting late, love. Please. Come here.

Sherlock shuts off the water as it finally starts to run cold, biting his lip with a pang of guilt that he should have left some hot water for the others to use. He swipes his hand through the thick steam on the mirror, flings a towel through his wet curls, then steals Greg’s toothbrush and face wash to finish getting ready for bed over the tiny sink.

And it’s not until he finishes his last spit of toothpaste and gargles his mouth that he realizes it’s oddly quiet in Greg’s room through the thin door. Far too quiet for the usual nighttime chat—which Sherlock expected tonight to largely revolve around practice runs and schedules and whether he’ll end up fucking walking in the fucking Opening Ceremony. 

Sherlock gently sets down Greg’s toothbrush and frowns. He tiptoes to the cracked-open door of the bathroom and presses his ear to the wood. When he still hears nothing, not even the quiet tapping of two people on their phones, or the groaning sighs from some sort of massage, or whispered words, Sherlock holds his breath in the pulsing silence, suddenly nervous, and peaks one eye through the crack to look.

He freezes.

John and Greg are both naked, which Sherlock wouldn’t think was necessarily odd for the end of the day if the two of them weren’t just standing there, facing mostly away from him towards the closed blinds. Sherlock squints through the darkness of the room, illuminated only by the sliver of light seeping out from under the bathroom door and the faint glow of the Village lights still on outside. Greg is holding John from behind, his arms wrapped around his chest, and neither of them say anything as Greg buries his face in John’s neck. Sherlock tries to make out what John is doing around the lines of Greg’s body, trying to trace the hints of his arms, the tip of his head over Greg’s shoulder, his elbow—

John isn’t wearing his leg. 

Sherlock is suddenly one-hundred-percent certain that he has never seen John Watson just . . . standing around without wearing his leg before. Never seen him not reaching for his crutches or hopping across the room or yelling at Sherlock for moving his leg when John wasn’t looking. 

He’s just . . . _standing_. In Greg’s arms. And Greg’s right foot is stepped forward slightly, where John’s should be. 

And they’re perfectly balanced.

The hair on the back of Sherlock’s neck starts to rise. He tries not to blink, tries not to breathe, and he watches from the shadows as the two of them stand in the dark, silent and still in the epicenter of the entire buzzing Olympics. 

And he thinks as he looks at them, not for the first time, that it is something of a completely irrational _miracle_ that these two men let Sherlock so much as flutter around in their orbit. That they give him precious inches, incomprehensible seconds of their touch and warmth, when the two of them should instead be each tightly bound to the other, permanently balanced in their own capable, solid world. From the beginning to the end. Steady, without some . . . some _kid_ who can barely control his own mouth barging in and making them groan or sigh. Giving them dark circles under their eyes. Sticking himself between their bodies and keeping them too far apart.

Sherlock swallows over his dry mouth then holds his breath, even though he knows they’re aware that he’s long done with brushing his teeth and his shower. He silently traces the lines he can see of Greg’s body through the silken shadows as he waits—waits for what, he feels he would never be able to say. 

Greg’s changed in the last four years. Well, three years and seven months, since that’s the first data point Sherlock can compare his current view of Greg’s naked body to. The once lean lines of muscle and bone across his back have slowly broadened, and his strong thighs have grown rolling and firm, and there’s an almost-imperceptible new layer of heavier muscle and weight across his stomach. There isn’t that whipcord, terrifying sharpness to the harsh cuts of his body anymore. 

No, he’s softened; he’s settled down and filled out. And Sherlock knows without having to be told that Greg hates it. Has caught Greg looking at himself in the mirror after a shower with an odd burning in his gaze, a twist in his mouth, right before he usually casts a glance to John or Sherlock, whoever is nearby, and his eyes silently trace their stomachs, their chests, their upper arms, the backs of their legs when he thinks they can’t see.

And Sherlock has tried for years, has spent literal hours thinking it over, and he still hasn’t come up with a single word in English or French that could accurately convey the intensity with which he loves the ever-growing broadness to Greg’s strong back.

Sherlock loves to taste this new body, be held down by it, held together. He loves to collapse on top of it after an exhausting day of training, sinking into the soft skin with a groaning sigh. He loves to catalogue the rolling, firm lines of it in the dark with his fingertips, the fascinatingly unexplored thickness below the dips of Greg’s arse, the valleys of his waist when he curls around Sherlock in bed. The stronger, bolder, more intoxicating line of his jaw. 

And Sherlock knows he’s not the only one who moans at the thought of clutching firm handfuls of Greg Lestrade. Has seen the way John’s eyes grow huge and dark when he traces the line of Greg’s bare spine as they all get ready in the morning. The way John can’t look away when Greg unzips his ski jacket after a long day out in the snow, and pulls each of his layers up over his head until his chest is heaving and bare, and his soft hair is mussed. 

And Sherlock is just beginning to realize how rapidly his heart is beating, thudding in his chest. That there’s the smallest stirring of heat pulsing deep in his belly, curling his toes against the cool bathroom tile, when suddenly:

“I’m sorry.”

John’s voice thrashes through the silence, broken and thin. It slices through Sherlock’s throat and halts the spinning of the earth. And then Greg is melting, molding around John’s back and clutching him tighter to his chest, gasping a deep breath into John’s hunched shoulder.

And here Sherlock was thinking he was about to walk out and insert himself between their arms, taste their bodies and lick and clutch handfuls of bulging muscle and soft skin, beg them to surround him, and take him to bed, and _consume_ him with wet lips and palms and thighs, when all this time Greg and John were actually in the middle of a bloody conversation, and Sherlock hadn’t even _noticed_.

He grips the doorknob with white knuckles and clutches the floor with his toes. 

Idiot.

Greg shakes his head against John’s shoulder. “ _Non, ne t’excuse pas_ ,” he whispers. 

John sharply inhales through his nose, and Greg shifts his weight to pull John completely back against his chest so he no longer has all his weight on one foot. Sherlock’s ears tingle when Greg kisses John’s neck—a kiss that is somehow the complete opposite of anything sexual. 

It’s the same kiss Sherlock himself felt one night just a few weeks into Greg’s coaching, in the hotel near the training slopes outside Les Orres, when Sherlock had sent him a humiliating text saying that he was almost certainly going to fail his bi-weekly drug test the next morning—they should just skip the training for two weeks and not even bother. Lestrade could take himself on a paid vacation. 

And Sherlock had somehow fallen asleep before he could even finish sorting out his perfect line of white powder, and woken up hours later to someone’s hands in his hair, someone’s lips on his cheek. Someone who’d clearly been sitting next to him for a long, long time without saying a word. Who’d cleaned up so that the coffee table was now bare. Someone who simply nodded and then said, “ _Bon, on y va?_ ” when Sherlock’s test actually came back clean two days later.

It’s yet another one of the things Sherlock would probably open his mouth and say if he ever allowed himself to join them for couch chats and whiskey.

Greg swallows, loud enough that Sherlock can hear it from where he still peers through the bathroom door. “I am just glad that you texted him,” Greg finally whispers. He inhales a shaky breath against John’s skin. “That you have that to be turning to.” And then his voice breaks, “ _Putain_ , J . . .”

Sherlock’s eyes grow so wide he wonders why they don’t immediately light up the dark room like police floodlights. 

He stares at them—at the way they’re sinking into each other as Greg’s chest shakes, and John turns his face so his cheek is pressed into Greg’s hair. Sherlock takes two seconds to review all the evidence before him and can only come to one unbelievable conclusion:

John Watson told him.

A sharp hotness punches through Sherlock’s chest, and his palm pours sweat onto the bathroom doorknob. He distantly registers in his mind that this is what pure shock feels like—because John had silently pleaded with him mere hours ago at dinner to keep his mouth shut tight, to keep everything forgotten and hidden and in the past like it was meant to be. And Sherlock had willingly gone along with it—kept Greg from having to know that John Watson still had moments where he thought he was alone in freezing sand, about to die.

And apparently John Watson thought Sherlock’s traditionally long shower was the perfect time to tell Greg that he texted Sherlock that afternoon. He told him when and where and why. He probably told him what they said. He _told_ him. And Sherlock would give up skiing for the rest of his life if he’s also wrong about the fact that John knows Sherlock is watching, that Greg knows Sherlock can hear.

A sudden wave of betrayal shoots through Sherlock’s veins, mixed with a complicated wash of relief. He bites the inside of his lip.

That was _his_ secret with John. His responsibility, and his care, and his idea, and his rescue. It was his role to sit and watch John sleep after receiving those texts, his duty to remind him where and who he was, his _job_ —one he had so far managed to do impeccably well, no deaths or hospitalizations in sight. It was _his_ fingers always wiping away one of John’s tears, and his warmth against John’s cold skin, and his palm rubbing John’s stump whenever it burned.

It was also his burden. The lonely minutes that ticked by after the times John sent him that dreaded text when Sherlock wished he could call Greg, to ask for help like he’s asked him for help countless humiliating times before. Those nights he sat with John silently out in the kitchen when John was breathing hard and in pain, shivering even wrapped in their thickest blanket, and Sherlock wished he could text Greg under the table to get out of bed and come join them, because he _needed_ him, and John needed Sherlock, and Sherlock wasn’t sure if he had the strength to do this all on his own without Greg’s sturdy chest behind him.

Sherlock shuts off the part of his brain still trying to parse out the difference between immense gratitude and piercing hurt, and instead watches John reach back to gently hold the back of Greg’s head. Sherlock can practically hear the frown that must be painted across John’s face.

“You know I . . .” John starts, then he stops and takes a deep breath. He holds on weakly to Greg’s neck. “Greg, you know that it isn’t . . . that it doesn’t have anything to do with you. I don’t . . . It isn’t about—”

“ _Je sais_ ,” Greg murmurs, in that same far-away sounding voice he’d used at the bottom of the course. Sherlock watches him hold John impossibly tighter. “You needed him.”

John’s voice is incredibly small. “Yeah. I did.”

“ _Et moi j’ai besoin de toi._ So I am only . . . I am so relieved that you are alright.”

“I’m alright.”

“And that he was there.”

“He was there.”

Greg kisses John’s shoulder again in the same way as before, sighing a long breath into his skin. Sherlock wonders if he’s imagining the heavy curve in Greg’s spine, the way his shoulders are hunched like they are sometimes when Sherlock looks up from helping John adjust his prosthesis and catches Greg looking at them from across the room, through a doorway, before Greg usually clears his throat and looks quickly away.

“ _Mon coeur_ ,” Greg whispers. John reaches back down for Greg’s forearms and simply breathes with a soft hum.

Greg had also said those two words to Sherlock once, wrecked and half-asleep and sitting on the cold bathroom floor. Two nights after Sherlock had inadvertently brought John Watson back into his life by finding him sitting in his monoski on the side of a crowded mountain. Only the words hadn’t been meant for Sherlock—not now, and not then.

No . . . Greg had hung his head in his hands and told Sherlock about the three weeks that changed his life, the three weeks he’d clung to _for years_ in the most buried part of his mind. Three weeks that had confirmed to him that he was gay, and that he was a human being outside of a pair of skis, and that he could have a _friend_. 

Three weeks that made him wonder more than a decade later if maybe John Watson crashed to the earth in a flaming helicopter because Greg had finally stopped checking the killed-in-action lists after he was twenty-three. Maybe he should have written to him. Maybe John wouldn’t have flown off alone and drawn the enemy fire if he knew that Greg Lestrade still thought of him, still ridiculously missed him, still regretted with every fiber of his being that he didn’t call him _mon coeur_ out loud when he still had the chance.

And then Greg’s wet eyes had blown wide in shock when Sherlock took his hand and told him that this didn’t have to be goodbye number two. That they should ask John to ski with them, to spend time with them, to secretly pay off his room so he could stay at the lodge for the full month Sherlock and Greg would be there—it wasn’t like John had a job or a family to go back home to. And that night Greg had begged Sherlock to be inside him for the first and only time, an experience that still makes Sherlock short of breath to think about. The way his mind had left his body, and all he could feel was _Greg Greg Greg_ , inside him and surrounded by him and _in . . . in . . . in . . ._ How for those twenty minutes even the cells in his own body didn’t exist. There were no more mountains, no more molecules of oxygen, no more Sherlock, no more skis. It had only been Greg, and his soft, brown eyes, and his gentle hands, and his full lips whispering, “ _Je t’aime, merci, je t’aime, love . . ._ ”

Suddenly, the thought of being fifteen steps away from them feels like suffocating on too-thin mountain air. Sherlock steps back, shucks off the towel around his waist so he’s naked, too, then quietly steps into the room, leaving on the bathroom light to guide his path.

Greg and John don’t move apart, but Greg lifts his head up from John’s shoulder and looks back at Sherlock through the shadows, and John holds out his hand to the side, waiting for Sherlock’s fingers in the air.

Sherlock quietly moans over a thick swallow. His eyes burn when John’s hand immediately grabs his own, when Greg’s eyes meet his as he comes to stand in front of them both. 

He suddenly feels nervous. Apologetic. As if he’s been ordered up for some sort of inspection which he isn’t at all sure he’ll pass. Like he should have his head down and be murmuring, “ _I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have gotten involved._ ” Like he should be handing John’s hand back off to Greg and then backing slowly away, leaving them perfectly alone.

Greg rests his cheek in John’s hair; he doesn’t let Sherlock look away. Sherlock braces himself for the inevitable plea for Sherlock to leave them and let Greg and John be alone tonight. For them to be allowed to retreat into the world where ‘ _vatican cameos_ ’ doesn’t exist. Where they are young and in love and Greg can make John feel like he did when he was eighteen and they don’t have Sherlock Holmes awkwardly listening to their private conversations about wars and panic attacks through bathroom doors.

Where nobody has to balance on one leg.

But instead Greg kisses John’s hair before looking back up at Sherlock over John’s shoulder. “How did you enjoy using up all of the hot water?” Greg asks.

John giggles with his eyes closed, still leaning back against Greg’s chest with Sherlock’s hand grasped in his own, and _now_ Sherlock truly understands the definition of shock, because his jaw drops open, and no sound comes out, and nobody in the ensuing silence asks him to hurry up and leave. Nobody accuses him of listening through doors, or of keeping secrets for years and years, or of not just showing himself the way out.

Because Greg just said something _humorous_ after . . . after John said . . .

“You stunned him into silence,” John says without even looking over, still smirking.

Greg’s eyes glitter. “How long do you think it will last?”

John hums. “I’d say at least a few minutes at this point. Give or take.”

Greg pats John’s chest in silent warning before stepping back from him, moving to turn down the sheets on the queen-sized bed as if he didn’t just learn anything revolutionary at all. As if he doesn’t realize that John Watson just did one of the bravest things in the history of the earth by telling him that he thought he was going to die today in the Olympic snow.

But then again, maybe Greg does know it was one of the bravest things in the history of the earth. Maybe he knows more than even Sherlock ever could.

“ _Bon_ ,” Greg says, tossing an extra pillow onto the bed. “Maybe then I can finally get a full night of rest for the first time in three years.”

“Three years and seven months,” Sherlock hears himself say, staring oddly into space. He blinks, comes to, and realizes that John is balancing in the middle of the room on his leg. Sherlock quickly lunges for his prosthesis propped up against the wall, but John shakes his head and waves him off.

“Looks like he’s working again,” John says to Greg with a laugh as he hops around the other side of the bed, using the wall for balance. “All you need to do is say something factually incorrect and it’ll get him to speak.”

Greg pulls on his favorite sleeping shirt—John’s ancient RAF flight training tee with giant holes in all the seams. He goes to turn off the bathroom light, and Sherlock can tell from the sound of his footfall on the cheap carpet that he’s limping. “ _Notre petite encyclopédie à nous_ is wrong, though,” Greg says. 

Sherlock is just about to sputter out that he couldn’t possibly be wrong, he is _never_ wrong, and what gives the two of them the right to make fun of him? Now? When they now both know that Sherlock received the text he never wants to receive again for the rest of his life earlier today? After John nearly hyperventilated in the snow? After Greg took them to see the empty course? How can they—?

“It is three years and eight months,” Greg continues as he settles into the bed beside John in the dark, rustling the sheets to try and find enough room. 

Sherlock scrunches his nose, feeling completely unmoored and muffled from the world—like his brain and body are moving ten seconds apart. “Three years and seven months ago we had sex in your appalling bachelor flat and I stayed over,” he says, scrunching his toes against the scratchy carpet just so he can feel something other than reeling confusion. “I’m not wrong.”

He hears a chuckle from the bed, but can’t tell from who.

“Ah, _tu as raison_ , love,” Greg says with a relaxed sigh. “But three years and eight months ago is when you started texting me at all the hours of the night. Was I drinking enough of the liquids? Was I doing my recovery stretches? Was I taking the post-op medications? Was I eating? When would I be back? Why couldn’t you come over in the middle of the night? When would my knee hurry up and be better so you could ski? Couldn’t I just coach you standing on one leg? Couldn’t I coach you over the phone? That was the last time I got a full night of sleep. Right before that month.”

Sherlock sniffs hard in the dark, clenching his fists at his sides and barely resisting the urge to stomp his foot. “Well, you were the one who’d just had _surgery_ after not bloody telling anyone else and driving yourself to the bloody hospital. And I barely knew you yet. You’d barely been coaching me for three months. How was I supposed to be certain that you were capable of keeping your body intact so you’d be able to coach me again as soon as possible and I wouldn’t have to waste time looking for an incompetent replacemen—”

“Ridiculous man, come to bed.”

“And also you _did_ finally let me come over in the middle of the night, in case you somehow forgot that that’s when we—”

“ _Allez viens_ , love.”

“And you _weren’t_ drinking enough liquids or doing your stretches. You were miserable and dehydrated and in pain lying on your pathetically hard couch. I had to make you—”

“C’mere . . .”

“And you _weren’t_ eating. Not until I was there to force you—”

“Come here, between us now.”

“I’m not tired. I’m jetlagged.”

“Gorgeous man, we’re all jetlagged. Come on.”

“There’s not even enough room. It’s a queen-sized bed.”

“ _S’te plaît. Je t’aime._ ”

“I’ll suffocate between you. You’ll smash me.”

“I love you. Please.”

And God, Sherlock is so overcome with relief to hear _come on, come here, please_ that he almost forgets to make a show of giving one final huff and stomping his foot.

John curses at him when he finally does fling himself across them onto the mattress, whirling up the sheets into a perfect cocoon around his body. And Greg kicks him so hard in the shin he wonders if he’ll have a beautiful bruise there in the morning to help him remember this night. To remember this moment when everyone knew almost everything and they still asked him to come on, to come to bed, please.

But then Greg is quickly reaching across the sheets, pulling Sherlock into his arms, that perfect way he always fits just-so against his chest, his lips pressed up against Greg’s collarbone through the old, soft shirt. His head tucked under Greg’s chin. 

And John’s arms are around his body from behind, John’s cheek against his back, John’s thigh slotted between his own, filling him and surrounding him and anchoring him between two thudding heartbeats. Two streams of calm breaths. And there isn’t a single part of Sherlock’s bare skin that isn’t being touched by another man, that isn’t being contained and covered and wrapped up tight.

He holds his breath when he feels Greg’s lips in his curls. “ _Je t’aime,_ ” Greg whispers, so raw and clear Sherlock wonders if maybe he’s only imagined all the hundreds of times Greg’s said it before, those dark, midnight seconds before Sherlock becomes lost to the conscious world.

He feels John shift behind him onto his elbow, sitting up and leaning over Sherlock, reaching for Greg’s face in the dark. They kiss above his ear, and Greg’s soft “I love you” drips down onto Sherlock’s eyelid, sliding down his cheek.

Then John hovers over him, turning Sherlock’s jaw with his steady hand so he can reach his mouth by practiced feel. Warm, steady lips press confidently against his own, and a mouth trails across his, sucking once at his lower lip. A warm nose traces along his cheek.

Sherlock is just starting to wonder as John settles against his back if maybe they aren’t really back at home after all. Maybe he’s hallucinated the Village and the plane rides and training runs and the queen-sized bed. Maybe he’s simply in London, in familiar sheets, where Greg kisses his hair and kisses John’s lips and tells them he loves them in every language every night, without fail. Where John finds his mouth by feel in the dark for a silent goodnight. Where the last thing Sherlock feels is always two sighs, one against his chest and the other along his spine, one after the other before everything fades away into a heavy, grey sleep.

But nearly fifteen minutes later, Greg still hasn’t sighed against his chest. Nothing has faded away into the grey. The moonlight is sharp.

Instead Greg licks his lips and whispers over the hesitant hum of breathing in the thick dark. “Not every man can say he is sleeping _avec deux athlètes olympiques_ tonight,” he whispers.

John chuckles through his nose behind Sherlock and holds him tighter. “You lucky bastard.”

Sherlock hears Greg smile, but then it fades.

“I never had anyone with me, before,” Greg murmurs in the silence. “At the course at night.”

John sighs through his nose. He lifts his arm from Sherlock’s chest and places his hand on Greg’s cheek. 

Greg kisses John’s palm before John can say anything back, and Sherlock wants to bolt upright and beg either of them to say something about the fact that Greg’s eyes had been wet standing out in the freezing snow, to say _anything_ , but then John’s arm is back across his chest, and after another minute, Greg softly clears his throat.

“He has been working so hard,” he whispers. “It amazes me.”

John hums. “Both of you have. I’m the real lucky bastard.”

“You think he is asleep?” Greg asks.

John kisses Sherlock’s spine. “He’s not. He’s lying here hoping we’ll say more nice things about him.”

Sherlock huffs, but it comes out more as a moaning hum. He isn’t even sure if the responding chuckles are real or in his dreams. And his brain starts to completely shut off for the night, getting ready to drift away and leave the real world behind, but then Greg whispers, “This is it, then. The madness begins tomorrow, _non?_ ”

John hums again behind him, then he echoes Greg’s words in an odd, falling voice, “Yeah. The madness begins tomorrow.”

But something’s not right. Something is off. Something about the way John’s holding him closer than he ever does when they’re falling asleep, something about the tightness in his voice, the close breath from his mouth . . .

And it’s only once Sherlock finally feels the sigh against his chest, and the answering one along his spine, that he realizes the answer to it all in one final, brilliant burst.

That tonight, the night before the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, John Watson told Greg Lestrade something Sherlock _never_ thought he would ever tell him. Because for some incomprehensible reason, John Watson thinks that tonight might be his last ever chance to share.

 

…

 

Sherlock drifts awake to the rumbling sensation of the mattress shaking.

Well, rolling is more like it. Rocking. Soft squeaks. 

And Sherlock is buried in warmth, surrounded by the familiar scent of Greg—shaving cream and too-black tea and those spearmint cough drops he always sucks on in the snow.

Except it isn’t Greg physically surrounding him with his smell and his warmth—the soft hairs on his chest Sherlock remembers falling asleep against—because Sherlock suddenly realizes that there’s another sound mixed in with the rocking and the squeaks.

Breathing. Soft sighs. Quiet gasps in a low rhythm. Filling the rest of the bed in front of him from where he’s bundled up in his warm cocoon of blankets along the side.

Sherlock flits through his thoughts and remembers closing his eyes either five seconds or five hours ago to the sensation of Greg’s lungs expanding against his lips with his steady inhale, and John’s thigh pressed up against the back of his legs. Soft whispers of goodnight. Greg’s lips pressed into his hair, whispering that he loved him. That he loved John. That their Olympics officially started tomorrow. That John for some reason thought he wouldn’t be able to talk to them again until March. Until forever.

And Sherlock can smell John, too. Hints of the muscle cream still seeped into his skin from Sherlock’s massage earlier that afternoon, the warm musk of the soft hair under his arms, spearmint gum.

He can smell sweat. 

“God, babe . . . Christ, you feel good.”

John’s voice, breathless and raspy and slow. 

Wet lips on skin, soft sucking and quiet licks, and Greg’s deep groaning voice between panted kisses, “ _Mon coeur . . . mon amour . . ._ ”

“Shhh . . .”

“ _Chéri_.”

The rocking mattress caresses the naked lines of Sherlock’s body, holding him gently in the rustling sheets. Sherlock scrunches his eyes shut so he won’t accidentally give himself away by opening them to peek, and his toes curl in spine-tingling heat from the radiating waves of rolling sighs. 

He wants to lie there and listen forever. Forget about the Olympics. Forget about his prelims and the interviews and the final runs. He wants to breathe in the scent of the two men having whispered sex mere inches from his body, to listen to them quietly gasp and taste. Reaching out and touching soft skin in the dark.

“Yeah, you’re hard . . . you’re dripping . . .”

“ _Putain . . ._ ”

A wet tongue licks into the cavernous whirls of an ear. A sharp inhale.

“ _Merde . . ._ ”

“Feel you in my hand.”

“ _Jean . . ._ ”

“God, you on me . . .”

They’ve been going at it for a while, then, if Greg’s at the point of calling him Jean. Lazy kisses and hot breath and heavy limbs. Sherlock can perfectly imagine how Greg’s body is draped across John’s chest. How his fingers are in John’s soft hair, along his jaw.

Sherlock recognizes John’s higher pitched breathing as he pulls out of the kiss, as John must be rolling his head back on the pillow, silently gasping, and Greg hums deep and growling in his chest as more wet lips trail and kiss up an exposed neck.

“Shhh . . .”

“ _J’ai envie de toi_.”

“Babe, yes . . .”

“Shhhhh . . .”

John swallows a groaning sigh. His gentle hands must be holding the back of Greg’s head, combing through the strands of his hair, and Greg’s mouth is exhaling across John’s shoulder, into the warm crook of his neck, whispered groans which Sherlock can practically feel vibrating across his own skin like crackling puffs of wet heat.

Sherlock’s mouth runs dry. His fingers tremble where they grip beneath the sheets, and he scrunches his eyes shut so tightly he sees bursting stars through the murky black.

Then, above the rocking and the wet lips and the hushed moans, John’s deepest midnight voice swirls through the inky darkness, snaking its way straight down Sherlock’s throat.

“Do you remember our first time?”

Sherlock almost gasps. He wants to tell the blood in his own veins to stop bloody pumping because he wants to hear _every second_ of John and Greg’s first time. Every detail they can remember. Every word. Every touch. Everything Sherlock has desperately wanted to know and always been too ashamed to just go and ask. Who started it and where they kissed and who touched who and who came first. 

He would break his skis in _two_ to be able to hear it.

Greg breathes a husky laugh against wet skin. There’s the soft clink of a nipple ring against teeth and a rolling tongue. “ _Bien sûr_ ,” Greg whispers, a smile in his voice. “How could I forget?”

A moan, then. A sigh and a shush and a whispered, “ _Yeah, right there . . ._ ”

“ _Mon dieu . . . how you taste . . ._ ”

“God . . . fuck.”

Sherlock wants to leap up from the sheets and groan, “ _Well, get on with it! What happened that first time! What comes next?!_ ”

He also imagines how John’s wet tongue must dart out to lick his lips, glistening and slow, his soft mouth full and pink. How John must be grabbing Greg’s jaw and pulling him down to his mouth, clutching him impossibly closer while they try not to gasp too loud, not to make the mattress squeak.

Lips meet. Sherlock holds his breath so he can clearly hear the roll of slow tongues. The rasp of Greg’s two day stubble across John’s skin. A mutual breath as they break apart. Someone nips the other’s lip.

“Never been so fucking nervous in my life,” John breathes, hardly even a whisper.

Greg sucks in a breath. Someone’s hands are roving across smooth, sweat damp skin, caressing planes of hard muscle. Or maybe it’s soft muscle. Or maybe it’s the line of an arching spine. Fingertips across bone.

“ _Nerveux_?” Greg whispers, and Sherlock can tell his tongue is roving along John’s shoulder, his lips caressing the sensitive spots around the raised skin. “And you invaded Afghanistan, _non_?”

John whispers a laugh. “That wasn’t just me.”

Lips meet again, and again, and again, long sighs into one another’s mouths, across two open tongues, and Sherlock can practically taste them on his own parted lips, and his tongue rolls in his own mouth, and his fingertips silently clutch the sheets, and he can _hear smell feel_ and he wants to _inhale lick taste_ . . .

“I was the one nervous,” Greg is murmuring into John’s skin, into his cheek and his jaw and his neck and his wet nipple. “You were _un soldat_.”

“Not yet.”

“ _Un pilote_.”

“Not yet.”

A mutual hum, trailing into a groan. Sherlock wonders which one of them is reaching between them to touch their cocks, if they’re slick together and wet. Which one of them is dripping. Who’s already thick and hard and full.

“ _Putain._ ”

John’s voice is the first slice of skis through fresh powder. The drop-in from the first gate. “Christ, I wanted you. . . .” Lips smashed together, heaving sighs. “Your mouth . . . and your eyes . . .”

There’s a clink of metal again. Silver rolling across a lapping tongue.

John swallows a moan. “Your hands . . . holding onto your skis . . .”

“ _Mon dieu . . ._ ”

“I wanted you.”

Greg thrusts on top of John’s arching body, pulling the sheets tight about Sherlock’s shoulders.

“You have me,” Greg whispers, straight into John’s ear. And he’s grunting in that way he only ever does with John, when they’re thrusting and tangled, when Greg’s teeth are grazing across John’s skin, and they’re both _taking taking taking_ but also stroking, holding, grasping so roughly it’s making the sheets yank across Sherlock’s body, making him have to bite his tongue so he won’t cry out at the warm, thrusting pull.

John licks Greg’s ear again. Or maybe his jaw. Or his lips. “Yeah, God, I have you.”

“ _Toujours_ ,” Greg pants into John’s mouth. Someone curses. John’s fist continues to pull and fly, and Greg tries to stifle another groan buried in John’s shoulder. “Always, J, you have me.”

There’s a soft slap across an arse, a buttock grabbed roughly in the palm of a strong hand. John laughs under his breath. “Christ, yeah. _Le champion de France_.”

Greg breathes an odd sigh in response, stifling a gasp against John’s chest. “ _Plus maintenant_.” Another kiss, frantic and open. “ _Maintenant_ I am just . . .”

But John interrupts him, “My man.”

“ _Mon dieu._ ”

“My lovely man.”

“J . . .”

Sherlock suddenly realizes he hasn’t breathed in over twenty seconds. His lungs punch and burn in his chest, screaming for air. He sucks it in slowly, slowly, carefully, not wanting to make a sound, to shift the sheets or move on the mattress. Because God, he needs to listen. He needs to catalogue the vibrations of the mattress. He needs to hear . . .

Greg starts whispering words into John’s chest and shoulder and hair which Sherlock knows John doesn’t really understand, can’t fully put together. Sherlock hunkers down, curled up tightly in the sheets, as Greg plants his hand against the headboard, thrusting their cocks together into his other wet palm, shaking, moaning softly into John’s body with his perfect John-moan, and it makes Sherlock’s ribs want to crack open and expand so he can suck the two of them right inside his own body, hold their sweat and their gasps and their hot tongues inside his own skin.

“ _Tu m’es revenu_ ,” Greg is whispering, his voice rough and broken, searing the words into John’s shoulder.

“Fuck, babe . . .”

“ _Mon coeur, tu m’es revenu_ ,” kissed across John’s jaw, gasped into his mouth, and the bed is thudding against the wall, and they’re thrusting faster . . . harder . . .

“Come now in my hand. Let me feel . . .”

“Christ, right there. I’m gonna . . . fuck—”

“ _Ne fait pas un bruit_. Come in my hand—”

“Baby . . .”

“ _Jean_ . . .”

Sherlock only realizes just as Greg finally keens in his throat that his own cock is half-hard, pressed down into the warm sheets. That his brow is dripping with sweat, and he’s biting his lips.

He listens to Greg spill across John’s stomach, whispering a long groan. Sherlock subtly rolls his hips just once against the mattress, shuddering under his skin at the waves of warm pleasure rolling down his thighs. He could lie in these sheets forever. Smell their sex and semen and sweat and drown in it like he drowns in the icy flurries of a fresh snow. Open his mouth and close his eyes and sink, sink, sink . . .

A hand suddenly reaches out and clutches his own through the dark. 

John’s hand.

Sherlock is too surprised to even grasp John’s fingers back before John throws back his head onto the pillow with a sigh and comes into Greg’s palm, crying out until Greg clamps a hand over his mouth to stifle his groan.

Even through the thick haze of sex in the air, Sherlock’s brain kicks into gear at the firm press of John’s hand in his, and he suddenly realizes that the reason the sheets around him smell like Greg Lestrade is because Greg draped his sleeping shirt around him as he slept. And John is still holding his hand as the last waves of his orgasm pulse through his body, held close in Greg’s arms, and everything is suddenly so blindingly clear Sherlock wonders why he didn’t just agree to it before.

The pain and betrayal still lingering in his chest from earlier have been punctured—deflating as they’re gently draped with the warmth of John and Greg’s soft skin.

With their love through the moonlit dark.

“Fine. I’ll walk in the Opening Ceremony,” Sherlock suddenly says.

For a moment, everything freezes. 

Greg pants as he hovers over John’s body, and John’s hand lies frozen in his own, and the mattress doesn’t make a squeak.

Then Greg collapses in John’s arms, smearing the semen across their bellies, and he gives one of his best groans to date. 

“ _Putain, Sherlock . . ._ ”

John giggles as he squeezes Sherlock’s fingers, his other hand rubbing the back of Greg’s thigh. “Told you he wasn’t really fucking asleep.”

Greg sighs, then leans down over the bed to grab the nearest article of clothing. He rises up onto his knees, wincing as he tries to catch his breath, then gently wipes off John’s skin, everywhere but his right leg. He takes much less time cleaning off his own stomach and thighs.

“I should know to believe you by now,” Greg says.

He tosses what Sherlock belatedly realizes was his own shirt back onto the floor, then crawls back over John and Sherlock to his side, taking special care not to step on John, and taking extra special care to knee Sherlock in the hip.

“I’ll have you know that I _was_ asleep,” Sherlock says, indignant even as his body melts back into Greg’s arms.

John reaches over to brush the curls back from his face. “Asleep until when?”

Sherlock frowns. “Roughly until ‘Christ babe God you feel good,’ or somewhere around there.”

“God, you,” John murmurs, just as Greg presses his prickly cheek to Sherlock’s shoulder, gently shaking his head. 

“ _Et qu’est-ce que tu veux,_ love?” he whispers, trailing his palm up Sherlock’s chest, the lines of muscle that are only there because Greg’s woken up every day for almost four years and followed Sherlock into the snow, calling out to him across the slopes.

Sherlock’s throat is suddenly tight. He silently reaches out his arm across John’s pillow until John catches on and puts his head on Sherlock’s shoulder, rolling against his chest. Then he turns his face until his nose is buried along Greg’s jaw.

“Just this,” Sherlock whispers, even though he’s still a little hard under the sheets, and there’s still that little flickering pulse of want between his hips. 

“You sure?” Greg breathes, his voice already thick and heavy with the pull of sleep.

Sherlock nods. What he really wants is to turn over and hold John’s face in his hands and swear to him that absolutely nothing is about to change tomorrow. That they will still be _them_ , even if they’re all in the middle of Korea, even if Sherlock and Greg are at Jeongseon every hour of every day for the next week focusing on his runs, even if they don't all go and have sex outside in the snow, even if they don't share a bed in the Village again—fuck the Olympics. 

Then he remembers the odd look that had passed over Greg’s face back in London, back when they were all crowded at the top of the stairs. Suddenly his promise to John doesn’t feel like it would be as easy to say.

Sherlock stays silent. He breathes for a long time, letting John sink down into him as he drifts back to sleep, his stomach still sticky from the smear of Greg’s release, and the puffs of air coming from Greg’s nose blow Sherlock’s curls back from his face. 

“I just want you,” Sherlock says when he thinks they’re asleep, knowing that they would understand that he really means, “ _Just you both._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French shit:  
> ne t’excuse pas : don't say sorry  
> et moi j’ai besoin de toi : And I need you  
> notre petite encyclopédie à nous : Our little encyclopedia  
> s’te plaît : please  
> avec deux athlètes olympiques : with two Olympians  
> j’ai envie de toi : I want you  
> un soldat : a soldier  
> un pilote : a pilot  
> toujours : always  
> plus maintenant : not now / not anymore  
> tu m’es revenue : You came back to me  
> ne fait pas un bruit : don't make a sound
> 
> \---
> 
> As always, I'm massively thankful for the kind words and comments! They make me feel as happy as Sherlock feels falling asleep between his two men.
> 
> I also wanted to add, in light of the recent Tumblr News, you can find me *much* more active on twitter! I'm there as @sincewhen_john. It's a much more reliable way to know about chapter updates than on Tumblr, and I may just stop using Tumblr altogether. So join me in tweet-land! I basically just scream about Martin and Rupert and my dog. And sexy fictional Olympic skiers. 
> 
> Next time: Sherlock and Greg are under the studio lights for their first official interview! Prepare the official NBC Olympics theme music!


	8. Lights Out, Words Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to "Lights Out, Words Gone" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLSEH4Bbb8A/)
> 
> My eternal gratitude, as usual, to my beta bakerstmel and my translator P. They are very freaking helpful and also very freaking fast. All remaining atrocities committed against either language are my own.
> 
> Enjoy!

_10 February 2018, 10:25 am_

 

The studio lights are so blindingly bright he briefly wonders if he didn’t black out the night before and then wake up more hungover than any university student alive.

But of course, he never went to university. Was too busy skiing down various global mountain slopes while his parents told him every night over homeschool textbooks that all this prize and sponsorship money would certainly pay for his higher education, all the schooling he wanted once he was . . . you know. _Trop fatigué_. 

So he can’t realistically know the typical hungover level of any university student alive. And anyway, he doesn’t think a drop of alcohol has passed his lips since his last whiskey night with John nearly . . . four months ago? Five?

_Merde_ these lights are bright. Do they have to make them so bright? Must viewers at home be able to see every single piece of stubble he missed that morning because he didn’t have Sherlock there to point them out? Every deep line in his skin?

“Five minutes, sir,” someone wearing a headset tells him. 

Greg adjusts the shining, crinkling coach’s jacket around his shoulders, runs a hand fruitlessly through his hair, wonders if he should pop off to the bathroom to check his teeth one more time, if he should pull out his phone and review Sherlock’s last four years’ worth of stats even though he has every course time and date memorized in more detail than his own.

Across the studio, in a different corner, Sherlock surreptitiously smiles down at his phone, half-trying to cover his mouth with his hand. John must be texting him, then. Telling him which stupid things he is and isn’t allowed to say on live television. Telling him to use his _real_ accent. Sherlock chuckles, quickly looks up to make sure nobody heard, then furiously types back something long and complicated with fingers flying across the screen.

Greg starts to reach for his own phone before remembering that it’s turned off back in his bag. John never texts him before any sort of interview for this very reason. It’s how Greg’s always treated anything even remotely related to his skiing—phone off, outside world shut away, focus on the task at hand.

Well, actually this is related to Sherlock’s skiing now. But apparently he subconsciously decided that the same rules still apply.

Sherlock rolls his eyes down at his phone and grins again. The sudden punch of longing that Greg feels for his own text from John surprises himself. He turns away from Sherlock and stares at the pristine couches on the stage instead. The vase filled with artfully placed orchids. The elegantly woven rug.

He can’t quite put his finger on why this interview feels different. He’s done dozens of these in-studio Olympics interviews before. Countless times sitting on a couch in his skiing gear, pretending it’s perfectly normal to wear full ski gear indoors with a light sheen of makeup on his face. He smirks to himself, imagining what Sherlock’s reaction to _that_ process must have been like. 

And maybe that’s what feels different—the fact that he has someone here with him who isn’t just his own coach, one from the long string over his career after he far surpassed what his father could teach him. Or someone who isn’t his parents, or some other French skier he’s only properly met half an hour before. 

No, _Sherlock_ is here. And normally that would fill him with that foundational sense of _right_ he can never really name, but now the lights are so bright, and they’re going to be asking him on international television how he met Sherlock Holmes, how it feels to coach him, and Greg can’t well open his mouth and say that coaching him reminds him of why he first fell in love with the snow, before he ever won his first medal when he was seven. Back when it was just freedom and flying and _fun_.

“You’re nervous.”

Greg jumps at the sudden whoosh of milky tea and half-eaten toast rushing up behind him in the soundstage corner. He knows denial is laughably futile, but . . .

“ _Arrêtes de te faire des films_ , Holmes. Why would I be nervous?”

Sherlock’s heat surrounds him in a humming rush. His eyes do a quick up-and-down of Greg’s body, and Greg embarrassingly straightens his spine and tightens his stomach as if Sherlock hadn’t seen him completely naked just yesterday morning. 

There’s a subtle sheen on Sherlock’s cheekbones—a soft shimmer of plush powder. So he couldn’t resist letting that makeup artist get to him, either. Maybe the _paon_ even asked for it. Wouldn’t surprise Greg, actually, now that he thinks about it.

Sherlock suddenly frowns, jutting out his bottom lip. “You’re nervous about the English?” he whispers. “Really?”

Greg shakes his head and leans back against the wall. He shoves his hands in his pockets as he watches the ADs and sound people frantically dash across the glittering stage doing last-minute prep. The lead NBC-International correspondents are fixing their makeup and elegantly draped scarves in mirrors from the expensive talk show couches. Behind them, a giant screen projects a live feed of the Jeongseon pass, dotted with the miniscule downhill skiers on their practice runs.

Greg finally shrugs, not looking at him. He _wasn’t_ nervous about the English, not before, but worrying about his English is vastly superior to wondering how many people will be sitting at home thinking, “ _Ah, Christ, remember when Lestrade was the champion of the slopes? Look at him now. He’s gone old. And the way he’s looking over at his young skier . . . he couldn’t have . . . he couldn’t be . . . could he?_ ”

“You cannot fault me,” Greg says. “I have to find _something_ to get nervous about at these Olympics since you will not let me get nervous for you.”

Sherlock scoffs. “Greg—”

“Holmes . . .”

“ _Greg_ , you speak English every day of your life, you and John would just stare at each other blankly in between making out for hours if you couldn’t speak English, you’ve already done two interviews since we arrived here in English, you’re listening to my English right now, why in the world would you—”

“This is different, _non_?” Greg jolts under his skin as someone announces the two-minute call. “This is . . . we are indoors. And they are . . . what if they ask something I don’t know? Or if people cannot understand my voice?”

Sherlock looks at him for a long moment before his eyes suddenly widen and clear. Greg wonders if his lie has been caught out, but the bright lights must be affecting Sherlock’s brain, too, because Sherlock glances around furtively before confidently declaring, “Oh, this is because it’s NBC.” He shakes his head and bites his lip like he’s frustrated at himself, which is ridiculous, because Sherlock Holmes didn’t _ask_ NBC-International to book them for this interview today, and Greg was the one who agreed, and yet . . .

“Listen to me,” Sherlock says, holding his gaze even as the production team starts frantically waving them towards the stage over his shoulder. “You have done literally dozens of these interviews before. You spoke with the NBC-International people the day we arrived—”

“That was casual. _C’était différent_ —”

“—and they will ask the same inane questions and speculate on the same boring things. They will make the same pointless jokes. And most of the questions will be directed at me anyway as the competitor. You can just sit there and talk about winning four Golds and look incredibly competent and wise in your coach’s jacket.”

Greg smirks despite himself. “The jacket does something for you, eh?”

He smirks even more when a small shiver rushes across the bare skin of Sherlock’s neck. “We can discuss that later,” Sherlock hisses, just as someone physically grabs Sherlock’s arm and starts to haul him towards the stage, and the cameraman starts the countdown at ten, nine, eight . . .

Greg calmly follows, then seats himself on the plush sofa by a roaring fire in the electric grate, trying not to squint too hard under the bright lights. Sherlock’s thigh briefly presses up against his own as he sits down, as if Sherlock accidentally landed short of his own side of the cushions, and Sherlock quickly whispers into his ear, “ _That ancient Korean vase on the table is from Ikea,_ ” before they move respectably apart. 

“Four . . . three . . .”

The trumpets of the NBC Olympics theme song blast through the studio, nearly rattling the glass panes of the windows. A montage of slow-motion skaters, skiers, lugers, and snowboarders plays out over the glittering HD screen behind them before it settles on a view of the flaming Olympic Torch over a field of fresh snow, “ _Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games_ ” elegantly painted across the sky.

After two beats of silence, the NBC-International announcers—two relative newcomers Greg’s never seen on the interview circuit before, both of whom are much closer to Sherlock’s age than his own—come alive. 

“Good morning, and welcome to your first official day of these 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games. With NBC-International, I’m Sonya Westley.”

“And I’m Rick Jordan. On behalf of our team, thank you for spending your Saturday morning with us. And joining us for our inaugural studio interview on this first morning of the games is alpine skiing greatness.”

Greg bites his lip when he notices out of the corner of his eye that the screen behind them is now covered with Sherlock’s official Olympics portrait—where he looks like he was mid-saying something condescending to the photographer, his curls in his face and his eyes narrowed into piercing slits. That, and that stupid photo of himself looking up at the French flag from the podium at Sochi, his final Gold around his neck.

Greg wonders like he always does every time he sees that now-iconic photo whether everyone really still believes that the tears in his eyes were because he just made alpine skiing history with the Olympic Record, just one tenth of a second away from snagging the World. Whether now that four full years have passed anyone finally suspects that the tears were actually because he’d felt a pop in his knee in the last two seconds of his race and was in indescribable pain, or because his parents had gotten on a plane and left Russia after their conversation the night before, his mother in tears.

“That’s right, Rick,” Sonya continues. She adjusts her legs until they’re perfectly crossed. “Breaking in the interview couch are two of the biggest names to grace alpine skiing in the last decade, four-time Olympic Gold medalist Greg Lestrade, and Vancouver silver medalist and Pyeongchang Super-G Gold hopeful Sherlock Holmes.”

“Two decades,” Sherlock immediately says without any intro.

Greg inwardly groans as Sonya and Rick stop with their mouths half-open. Sonya recovers first. “Sorry?”

Sherlock subtly shifts so his spine is even straighter against the back of the couch, making himself taller than everyone else. “Lestrade has been the biggest name to grace alpine skiing for the last two decades,” he says. Then, with a quick, jolting smile. “Just to keep everything factual.”

This time Rick recovers first, and he laughs like Sherlock’s a little kid who’s just done a mildly impressive and adorable trick. “Well, thank you, Sherlock. Maybe we’ll need to get you on the other side of this couch one day to help us out.”

“I doubt I’d have time in my rigorous training schedule, but thank you.”

Sonya grins at Greg enthusiastically, carrying on with a professional tilt of her head. “Super-Greg, I must say, what a privilege to have you back in an Olympics Village once more!”

Rick chimes in, “A real relief for all of us to see you back, especially after news of your retirement after Sochi. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s delighted to see you still wearing a Team France jacket.”

“As if he could have switched nationalities . . .” Sherlock grumbles.

Greg barely resists the urge to stomp on Sherlock’s foot on camera and instead sits forward on the couch, putting on his best ‘exasperated coach’ apologetic smile. 

“Sorry for him,” Greg says, immediately wincing at the harsh grate of his accent against everyone else’s crisp, polished English. “It is just the nervous energy for the games. Thank you for having us. And yes, it is good to be back.”

“I’m sure it is!”

“And Sherlock, how is it for you on the eve of your Super-G prelims? How are you feeling?”

Sherlock quietly exhales a sigh beside him. Greg turns to look at him, casually leaning forward onto his knees, as if he’s just a calm, relaxed coach interested in what fascinatingly positive thing his skier is about to say for the at-home audience.

In reality, he turns his face briefly away from the camera and smiles at Sherlock with a look in his eyes that he knows says, “ _If you fuck up this interview, it will only take longer, and then you’ll hate everything even more. Love._ ”

Sherlock sees it. He slowly relaxes his jaw, then gives a smile to Rick and Sonya that anyone but Greg would deem undeniably pleasant and warmly approachable. 

“I’m feeling prepared,” Sherlock says, sitting up straight. “Taking advantage of the practice runs. Getting my head in the game.”

Greg almost laughs. He would have bet money that Sherlock Holmes would rather become a _snowboarder_ than say something like “getting my head in the game” out loud—let alone on international television.

Rick nods enthusiastically. “Now, let’s talk Jeongseon. It’s a fierce course. We’ve already seen a few tumbles and ski-outs during the practice runs. Thoughts on the set-up they have here in Pyeongchang? Does it feel like a good course?”

“A _Gold medal_ course?” Sonya adds.

Greg watches Sherlock stare blankly at Rick and Sonya. Sherlock’s fingers fidget uncharacteristically with the zipper on his Team France jacket. 

“Well,” Sherlock says, “it is a course. And it is on a slope. And it has spaced gates on it and snow. Somebody will by-design earn a Gold medal on it. So it appears to be a good Gold medal course.”

Rick and Sonya laugh in chittering unison, and Greg fights his own smile when Sherlock shoots him a confused frown, utterly unaware that he just told a dry joke. Greg gives him an encouraging nod, and his chest briefly burns when the lines of Sherlock’s tense shoulders immediately relax.

“Now,” Sonya says, “let’s talk specifics. Sherlock, you’ve got your coach’s Olympic Record still holding strong over the course. Is that your goal for time?” 

Sherlock’s jaw tightens. Greg admires the sharp line of it for half-a-second before quickly looking away, staring at the Ancient Korean Ikea Vase.

“My goal for time is to ski as fast as I possibly can,” Sherlock says. “It would be foolish to limit myself by keeping a specific time in mind if I could go even faster.”

Rick suppresses a smile. “So you think you can go much faster than your coach’s Olympic Record? Don’t want that to slow you down?”

“That’s not what I said,” Sherlock huffs just as Greg slaps a palm on Sherlock’s knee and sits forward. 

“It works best for him not to think of the times beforehand,” Greg explains, wondering if he’s speaking too fast, too slow, too simply. “We focus on the route and the angles of the turns, and the time comes later.”

Rick and Sonya both immediately turn to Greg, and Greg wonders if he imagines the slight sigh of relief that, apparently, the time for asking Sherlock Holmes questions is temporarily finished.

Rick makes a gesture with his hands that Greg himself has used in order to look like he’s having a casual conversation when all his lines have already been memorized in advance. “Let’s talk more about that, actually,” Rick says.

Sonya hums. “Tell us more about how you’ve organized the preparations for this Olympics. Your first true season of coaching!”

There’s a pause. Greg tries not to squint in the bright lights and wonders what his coach is going to say. Probably talk about World’s, and the Alpine Cup, maybe something trivial that sounds interesting about trying out a new style of ski, the new Olympic regulations surrounding ski length, etc.

Then he realizes that nobody is talking, and Sherlock barely whispers under his breath, “ _Do you want me to answer_?” before Greg remembers that _he_ is the coach. That they’ve just asked about _his_ designed training regimen. 

Greg clears his throat and rubs a hand over his knee, which is starting to ache even from just sitting in the deep couch for five minutes.

“ _Oui_ , of course, Holmes’ training,” he says. 

Sherlock stiffens beside him. There’s a heavy pause swooping its way through the studio, stilling everything except the fake snow fluttering down across the screen, and the huge red countdown clock to keep the broadcast within time mounted from the black ceiling.

Out of nowhere, Greg suddenly remembers the stillness of his tiny flat after Sherlock had leaned forward and kissed him on the couch for the first time. The way the darkness beyond the windows had seeped in across the carpet, wrapping around their bones as Sherlock’s breath trembled across Greg’s upper lip. And then the stillness had absolutely shattered, blown to pieces, as Sherlock sucked in a breath, levitated up from the couch, and flew himself halfway across the room with his hands in his curls, muttering, “ _Sorry, sorry, delete that, it wasn’t even . . . sorry, sorry_.”

How that stillness had returned when Greg grabbed his nearby crutch and hobbled over to Sherlock by the door, hiding his wincing whenever he put weight on his bandaged knee. How Sherlock had frozen, held his breath, as Greg reached out a shaking finger to touch his wrist. “ _This is not a good idea,”_ Greg had whispered, and Sherlock had nodded and said, “ _You’re my coach._ ” And Greg’s answering “ _putain_ ” had been swallowed up by the beautiful sound of Sherlock sighing, “ _Gregory . . ._ ” right before their lips met, and the stillness was only broken by the wet slide of a desperate tongue.

Greg blinks. Three entire seconds have passed on the shining red clock since he trailed off from his last sentence. Sherlock’s knee bumps against his own as he fake-fidgets on the couch.

“I believe it was a mutual effort,” Greg continues, glancing quickly at Sherlock with a tight warmth in his chest. Rick and Sonya both grin at him with sparkling eyes, their hands poised in their laps.

And then a stream of competition names and times and placements pours out of Greg’s mouth in an even rhythm—Sherlock’s championship titles from the last four years, his new skis, his PR’s, that slope in Germany that gave him a run for his money when he skied-out three times, the training base in France, the cross-country cardio routine.

Greg wonders desperately while he’s talking how forced Rick and Sonya’s smiles really are. If they haven’t just cut the cameras five minutes ago and let him ramble on into the void while they air one of his old commercials for Rossignol, where his hair is still deep brown, and he’s skiing thirty miles per hour faster than he ever does now, and his eyes don’t disappear into webs of wrinkled lines when he smiles.

“So, it was all just a normal season of training,” Greg finishes lamely, shrugging down at his hands. “But Holmes has worked hard, and based on his work alone, I believe he can win the Gold.”

The following beat of silence is sickening and thick. Greg wonders how damaged his coaching reputation would be if he just leapt up from the couch and sprinted off stage. If maybe then Sherlock would finally get himself a _real_ coach who doesn’t represent the very definition of ‘conflict of interest’—something Greg’s been begging him to do since that very first night.

But then, to his surprise, Sonya leans forward, completely out of her professional perch, and looks at him with wide eyes.

“Just fascinating about using the new ski length to tackle that tricky slope in Germany!” she says, and Greg is struck by how much more earnest her voice is now than it’s been the whole interview.

Rick shakes his head beside her with a grin. “Greg, I must say, we sure miss you in the competition, but it seems you were born to be a coach! What insight!”

Greg grins, like he knows he’s supposed to do, even though Rick’s words are somehow the worst thing he’s heard since touching down in Korea. Sherlock can sense this, Greg knows.

“Enough of all this,” Sherlock cuts in. “Lestrade has better things to do than sit around giving you a play-by-play of the last four years. Anyone can google me online and learn the same exact things. Now, ask an _interesting_ question.”

Greg expects Rick and Sonya to look stone-faced or annoyed, but instead an odd glimmer in their eyes suggest that they _do_ have a more interesting question, and they both know it.

“Right then, Sherlock,” Rick says. “Tell us about what it’s like to have Greg Lestrade for your first ever coach. How did this pairing come about?”

“Like any coach-athlete pairing comes about, I expect,” Sherlock says, leaning his arm across the back of the couch, the sleeve of his jacket tingling the hairs above Greg’s neck. “Lestrade needed an athlete to coach, and I was an athlete. Fascinating how that somehow worked itself out, no?”

Greg bites the inside of his lip. “He is joking, of course,” he says, and Sherlock gently flicks the back of his neck with his fingers. Greg ignores him. “When I . . . when I knew I was not going to compete in Pyeongchang, I remembered Holmes from Vancouver. I had heard he needed a coach. The timing—it worked out.”

“And the two of you must get along? You have an impressive record over the last four years. One of the best currently in the sport—”

“ _The_ best in the sport,” Sherlock murmurs.

Sonya ignores him. “It must be a good match for so many championship wins to come out of it!”

The exclamation sounds a lot like a question. Greg doesn’t miss the way her eyes are glancing between them skeptically, probably wondering how on earth the polite, good-natured ex-skier sitting calmly on the couch—the one hoping he doesn’t look massive next to Sherlock’s lean frame—even puts up with Sherlock’s sharp-tongued mouth and restless energy. 

She probably couldn’t imagine in a million years some of the yelling matches they’ve had out on the slopes during a practice. That Greg Lestrade doesn’t let Sherlock Holmes walk all over him without biting back. That Greg actually _wins_ the arguments most of the time.

That Greg whispers sweet words into his neck when they fuck. Calls him _beautiful love, gorgeous love_ as he holds and kisses Sherlock’s tired limbs.

Greg clears his throat. “We seem to work well together, that is all,” he says. When Rick still looks unconvinced, he adds, “Sometimes Holmes even listens to what I say!”

Sonya laughs. “Yes, it seemed earlier you were hinting that many of the coaching decisions—some of the angles, the ski design—they have been Holmes’ ideas—?”

“That’s right—” Greg starts to respond just as Sherlock comes to life for the first time in a few minutes and huffs. “That’s preposterous. Lestrade is being politely modest. He is the coach. Everything over the last four years is his idea. He leads.”

Greg internally rolls his eyes, even as a hot wave of emotion rolls down his throat.

Sonya flips her shining black hair over her shoulder. “Does that have anything to do with why you’re competing for France these Games, Sherlock?”

Sherlock suppresses a scoff, even as Greg leans forward. He’s wanted to ask Sherlock this question dozens of times, but never has. He’s never been able to tell himself why.

“Why my choice of country would have anything to do with another skier is beyond me,” Sherlock declares. “I have dual citizenship. My mother was French. I was at boarding schools and training centers near the French Alps from the age of ten. It was a logical decision to make.”

Rick frowns. “But you competed for Great Britain in Vancouver.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Change of air.”

“Big difference, you find, between French and British air?” Rick smirks.

“Perhaps I simply enjoy the colors of the French flag more.”

Sonya fake-laughs at Sherlock’s dead-pan joke before effortlessly segueing, “Well, let’s remember that wonderful Vancouver podium!”

Greg blinks as the image on the screen looming behind them flashes in a whirl of CGI snow into a photograph of the Super-G medal ceremony from Vancouver—Greg on top with the Gold, pulling up the Silver and Bronze winners onto his step with his arms around their shoulders. Greg tries not to frown when he realizes he doesn’t even remember who the Bronze was—a skier from Poland? Russia? Or was he an American?

And then there’s Sherlock: visibly resisting being pulled into the hug with a slight scowl, just turned twenty not two weeks before. His long curls fall haphazardly into his eyes as he stares at the camera with a completely blank expression. The Silver hangs dully from around his pale neck. 

Greg shivers when he remembers the day Sherlock hung his head and told him what he’d gone off and done for the first time later that night. Wonders, for the millionth time, if Sherlock’s life would have gone differently if Greg had invited him out to celebrate instead of immediately running off to his own after-party, leaving the British kid to walk back to the Village through the crowd with no family or coach in sight. If Sherlock would have smiled with the Sochi Gold in his hands four years later instead of watching Greg win again from a telly screen in a questionable bar, still reeling from a high.

“Now, you two didn’t know each other at those Games, correct?”

Greg shakes his head, making sure his gaze is on the _entire_ photo instead of one specific pair of blank, pale eyes. “ _Exact_ —I mean, yes. We met there on the podium, I believe.”

“Sherlock,” Sonya says with a conspiratorial grin, “it must have been such a thrill to share your first ever Olympic podium with the champion of the sport! Was that an inspiration for you at that young age?”

To Greg’s surprise, Sherlock gives a serious hum. “It was the only positive moment of those Olympic Games for me, yes.”

Greg almost gapes at him. He never knew Sherlock even paid him a spare glance in Vancouver, didn’t know Sherlock had even registered who he was beyond ‘the French guy who snatched the Gold from his hands.’ 

Rick looks like he wants to ask more, but a sudden gesture from one of the producers makes him turn instead towards the screen.

“Speaking of you, Greg,” he says. “It wouldn’t be a true Winter Olympics if we didn’t take a quick trip down memory lane.”

Sonya sparkles. “Let’s remind our viewers at home how Greg Lestrade has forever changed the sport of Super-G Alpine Skiing.”

Terror sinks into Greg’s gut with a dull thud. Sherlock oozes confused wariness beside him. They both watch, perfectly still, as the HD screen transforms in a burst of snowflakes. Soft violins fade in through the studio sound system, then the rolling hum of gentle horns.

Greg watches, trapped on the couch, as a horrifying montage of his career plays out over the screen to an otherwise silent and frozen studio. 

Nineteen and holding up his Nagano Silver, leaping into his mother’s open arms over the railing. Sinking to his knees in the snow in disbelief when he won the Salt Lake Gold. His first ever ad campaign with Rossignol, skiing shirtless down the mountain with his Gold and Silver around his neck, a hit 2001 pop song blaring. Then there’s Turin, where he shocked everyone by coming back from fifth place to win his second Gold while _also_ placing an impossible fourth in his first and only Moguls race. 

Two champion French skiers from before his generation appear as talking heads, calling him the innovator of the sport, perhaps the greatest skier alive, and the young Swiss kid looking to be Sherlock’s biggest Pyeongchang competition calls Greg his idol, his inspiration, the reason he picked up a pair of skis. 

And there’s the footage of his father crying in Vancouver when Greg blew him a kiss from the podium, the French flag draped about his shoulders. Final course times flash up on the screen, a montage of his reactions to his various wins. Announcers cheer him on and exclaim as he crosses finish line after finish line, flies around turn after turn. They whoop with enthusiasm as he smashes three Olympic Records in a row, as he sets the World Record in Turin, the youngest skier ever to do it. There’s him as the flag-bearer in the Opening Ceremonies, wild shots of him flying down the course on his skis, snow bursting through the sky and piercing the thick clouds, the slice of his skis across the ice, the flap of his forearms against the gates. 

The longest ninety-seconds of Greg’s life finally end with crystal clear footage of that final run down the Sochi course, the screaming of the announcers over the swelling violins as they realized he’d smashed his own stunning Olympic Record, cutting away from the footage just before the moment when Greg collapsed, his hands clasped around his knee, and the crowd gasped in horror until he got up and skied on one leg, pretending he’d just slipped in loose snow.

It ends on the Sochi podium photo, overlaid with his Nagano Olympics portrait. One last NBC announcer from the Sochi Games speaks in a choked voice, “ _Folks, it may be decades before we see another skier like Lestrade grace these slopes. What a privilege to be here for his fifth Olympic Gold. He has written his name in the snow, and we sure won’t forget it._ ”

The music fades away on a final inspirational note, and the studio is silent.

Greg holds his breath, frozen to the screen. In the silence, Sherlock’s foot presses up against his own, and doesn’t move away.

“What a career!” Rick exclaims, his voice shattering through the studio with a jolt.

Everyone seems to breathe and shift at once. Sonya flips back her hair, an odd sheen over her eyes. “You’ve truly set the stage for this next generation of skiers. How does it feel to be coaching that generation now?”

Greg takes a deep breath. Sherlock’s foot is still pressed firmly up against his own. His voice is blessedly smooth and normal when he finally speaks. “It has been an honor,” he says, nodding at the screen. “And _ouah_ , thank you for that. It was . . . it was unexpected.”

Rick smiles knowingly, as if he’s totally in on the fact that Greg looks emotional over the glory of his career, not over the fact that he just had to re-watch the moment when his entire career flew away with one poor finish-line squat.

As if reading his mind, Sonya’s face grows serious. “And, of course we have to ask, how is your injury now? Are you healed?”

It’s the question Greg’s been dreading for four long years. There’d been a sort of unspoken agreement not to ask him about his knee during all the inter-Olympics seasons when he showed up to competitions with Sherlock, but apparently now that he’s gone and become an Olympic Legend the question is fair game.

He moves his hand off his knee, wondering how long he’s been visibly massaging it—if that’s the whole reason why they even asked. “Ah, I am better now, yes,” he says. He shifts on the couch. “Thank you.”

“Your injury happened at the actual Games, did it not?”

Greg carefully controls the line of his shoulders. “In the last few seconds of that Sochi finals clip, actually,” he says, as if he’s just rattled off that the weather outside is brisk and nice. “My final squat to reach the finish line.”

Sonya makes a sympathetic face. “And you had surgery?”

Greg wonders when this interview completely derailed from being anything about Sherlock Holmes. He runs a hand through his hair to buy time, inwardly proud that he’s only resorted to doing that once so far this interview. “Right after Sochi, yes.”

He waits for Sherlock to butt in and say, “ _Not right after, he ignored it until he couldn’t even walk and then ditched my practice to drive himself to the bloody hospital and I had to come look after him during the most tedious weeks of my entire life. And then he kissed me back because he was so overwhelmed by just decent human kindness._ ”

Instead Sherlock huffs. “I thought this interview was supposed to be about the _athlete_ ,” he says, in a way that makes Rick and Sonya laugh—ah, they’re in on his silly jokes now—and which makes Greg want to turn and kiss him right there in gratitude. 

“Right, of course,” Sonya says. “ _Sherlock_ , you must be glad for Greg’s return to the sport. We’re not the only ones speculating that you have your best ever chance this Games to finally win the Gold.”

Sherlock immediately responds, “I never would have skied again if not for Lestrade returning to the sport. So yes, obviously, I am glad for his return.”

Rick sputters, completely unsure what to do with such an earnest response. Greg blinks away the sudden water in his eyes, and Sonya quietly gasps.

“Well, there you have it,” she says to the camera, a beat too late. “A true athlete-coach team!”

Something changes in the air, then, as Rick prepares to speak. Greg feels the crackle of danger, the hesitance, the anxious tapping of feet.

_Putain_ , they wouldn’t bring up . . . they wouldn’t ask about . . .?

“And now that we’ve remembered Super-Greg’s triumphant Games,” Rick begins, his words carefully measured, “Sherlock, your Sochi experience had an unfortunate hang-up—”

“We are here to discuss Pyeongchang,” Greg immediately interrupts. He’s surprised at the sharp fierceness to his voice. For once, he doesn’t mind the rough tones of his accent at all.

Sherlock’s thigh inches closer to his, and Greg hears Sherlock take in a careful breath. Greg tilts his head with an apologetic grin at the interviewers, trying to soften the blow. 

Sonya recovers first. “Ah, of course. Yes . . .”

“You know,” Greg adds with that on-camera-innocent spread of his hands. “Have to keep his head in the game!”

The lame joke breaks the tension, and he feels Sherlock finally exhale beside him.

Rick licks his lips. “Our time is running out here, but before we go, we have to ask how you two enjoyed the gorgeous—”

“Just breathtaking!”

“—Opening Ceremonies from last night.”

Footage of Team France walking into the stadium suddenly appears on the screen, the pop music thankfully muffled in the studio. Greg immediately finds Sherlock where he was lingering towards the back, lumbering along with the four-man bobsled team who looked like they’d all just enjoyed a particular swallow of _beverage_ right before the Parade.

“Greg, you were there to watch, I’m assuming?” Sonya asks, sounding so enthusiastic it was as if she wanted Greg to respond that simply _watching_ the Ceremonies from his hard plastic seat carried even more honor than all that dribble of carrying the flag.

Greg nods. “But of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

Sherlock quietly chuckles through his nose beside him. They all watch in awkward silence as the camera footage zooms in on a few of the more recognizable French athletes before finally settling on Sherlock in the back, catching him just as he stops dead in his tracks, shields his eyes from the bright lights in the stadium, and then breaks out into a huge smile, waving towards the stands.

“Sherlock,” Sonya says, laughing, “That might be the biggest reaction we’ve ever seen from you ever, even after a competition win!”

Greg watches Sherlock’s cheeks tinge pink as Rick chuckles along, adding, “Yes, you have to tell us. Who had you spotted in the crowd?”

“Family here at the Games with you?”

“A special someone?”

They all stare at the screen-grab of Sherlock from the Parade, one hand resting gently on his chest with the other one reaching towards the black mass of the stands, the handsome navy blue Ceremony jacket perfectly hugging his arms and chest. Curls tumbling out from under the stylish Team France beanie.

Sherlock grins briefly at the screen, then shakes his head, turning back to Sonya and Rick. “Just . . . someone I knew. An old friend,” he says in an anticlimactic mumble.

Rick looks disappointed. “Skiing friend? Someone you know from the circuit?”

Greg briefly sends up a prayer of thanks that the camera focusing on the stands hadn’t somehow tracked Sherlock’s gaze and found him and John sitting in the audience, both of them suddenly overwhelmed at how gorgeous Sherlock looked walking under the stadium lights—how utterly perfect. How both of them had been blinking back tears in their eyes as they waved back wildly from the stands, and John had laughed that now he wouldn’t need to have kids, because he’d experienced his peak moment of being a proud dad.

Sherlock shrugs and leans back casually against the cushions. “Something like that.”

“Well,” Sonya says after a brief pause, hoping for elaboration, “it looks like we’re out of time here in the studio. Sincere thanks to you both for taking time away from the slopes to chat with us.”

“A true honor,” Rick chimes in, looking mostly at Greg. “On behalf of France, and all of us here at NBC-International, Sherlock we wish you the best of luck on your bid for Pyeongchang Gold.”

“We can’t wait to see you in the prelims tomorrow!”

Greg and Sherlock both mutter an awkward, rushed thanks as the camera pans quickly away from them, mid-words, zooming in on Sonya’s beaming face as she gives the broadcast details for when to tune in for the Super-G prelim runs.

Greg realizes he’s barely taken a breath since the end of the interview when someone out in the darkness beyond the lights yells, “Cut!”

The spotlights instantly dim, and Greg blinks in the sudden wash of shadows. Rick and Sonya stand up from the couch in perfect unison, brushing imaginary dust from their fashionable Winter Season clothes even though the temperature in the studio has them all sweating under their scarves.

They all shake hands; a dizzying jumble of “thank you”s and “good luck”s and “it was our pleasure,”—”no really, it was ours!”

Greg barely processes what’s happening as he and Sherlock stride out the studio door, gear bags back in hand and waving final goodbyes to the NBC crew. All he knows is that they need to get to the course. Practice and practice and practice until the sun goes down, and even then some, and he needs to convince Sherlock not to take the absolutely _dangerously insane_ angle he wants to take on the fifth gate, and he needs to make sure the gear team cleans and preps Sherlock’s skis properly, without any errors, and that his uniform and bib number are all in order and sorted, and that they know exactly where to be tomorrow and when, and that Sherlock actually eats something, and he really needs to tighten up that ninth gate or he’ll never even make the top three tomorrow, and Sherlock only needs to make top ten but Greg can’t handle the outburst that would ensue if he got anything less than second, and the weather looks threatening, snarling clouds looming low across the sky, and—

Greg blinks to find that he’s standing in the fluorescent hallway of the Jeongseon training center. He has no memory of taking the van, or arriving at the pass, or even checking in.

Beside him, Sherlock says his name in a way that makes Greg suspect Sherlock has been saying it repeatedly with no response.

“Greg? Greg, honestly . . .”

“ _Désolé, désolé,_ ” Greg finally rushes out. He looks around him in a daze, wondering how long it’s actually been since he was sitting on a plush couch under bright, hot lights. Since Sherlock’s foot was pressed up against his in front of three different HD cameras.

He takes a hesitant step forward in the hallway, unsure if he’s even heading the right way.

Sherlock’s voice is hesitant as he stands rooted to the floor, “Greg . . .?”

“ _Alors, on y va—?_ ” Greg starts to sputter out when Sherlock suddenly huffs, grabs his arm, and pulls Greg unceremoniously into an unlocked door beside them. Greg stumbles along into an unused locker room, one he realizes with a quick glance has been adapted for the Paralympians for next week. The lights don’t automatically turn on as they enter, and Greg barely has time to turn around and start hissing a curse when Sherlock’s hands are on his shoulders, one of his curls tickling Greg’s brow.

“ _Respire_ ,” Sherlock whispers in the sudden silence.

For some reason, that breaks him.

Greg melts forward into Sherlock’s ready arms, pressing his face into Sherlock’s warm neck. He realizes Sherlock’s already changed into his practice gear, fully ready to burst out on the slopes except for his skis.

His arms are warm, and his heart calm, and his curls smell somehow like their London bed, and he’d looked so beautiful on that couch today, so competent and unbelievable and _poised_.

Ah _merde_ , but the clock is ticking. They need to go go go . . .

Greg pulls back quickly, starting for the door, trying not to wince at the burst of cool air against his front without Sherlock’s warmth. “ _Allez viens_ , you need to get out there. We already wasted the time this morning—”

Sherlock pulls him back. 

Greg finally looks up at his face through the dim shadows, illuminated by the fluorescent lights seeping under the door from the shining hallway. Sherlock’s eyes glow in the dimness, like fresh snowflakes in the middle of the night.

Sherlock’s breath shakes. “Thank you for doing that,” he whispers.

Greg doesn’t need to ask him what he’s referring to. He thinks of Sherlock Holmes’ face hunched over in the sticky bar in Sochi. The way he’d looked more shocked than Greg has ever seen him look since when Greg stuck out his hand to shake on their coaching agreement, after writing his cell number down on a napkin for Sherlock to give him a call once he had his first clean drug test in hand.

Greg puts his hands on Sherlock’s waist now, sharp and lean through the lycra. “ _Bien sûr_ , love,” Greg whispers, even though nobody could possibly hear them. “ _On forme une équipe tous les deux, non?_ ”

“I meant what I said,” Sherlock breathes. “Everything I said. I meant it.”

And before Greg can admit that this time he doesn’t know what Sherlock’s talking about, Sherlock’s cool lips are on his forehead in a soft kiss. 

Shivers cascade down Greg’s spine. He racks his brain for a moment, and realizes he cannot remember a single time when Sherlock's ever done that to him before. He holds onto Sherlock’s waist and inhales.

_Mon dieu_ , but he’s so lovely. Greg had thought the same thing lying in bed on his side the morning after that first night, after his skin had been kissed for the first time since he could even remember, and Sherlock had had to do all the work while Greg lay on his back with his knee elevated on a perfectly-placed pillow. After Greg had fallen asleep with Sherlock curled up in his arms.

That morning, over the screaming thoughts in Greg’s mind as he watched a naked Sherlock Holmes sleep in his own sheets—that this was a terrible idea, that this would never last, that it would ruin them both, that everything would be destroyed—over all of those thoughts, Greg had bitten his lip and looked at the steady rise and fall of Sherlock’s sculpted chest and thought, _mon dieu . . . mon dieu, he’s so lovely_. 

And he hadn’t thought those words in a very long time. Not since he was twenty-one in a ski lodge bed.

But Greg tenses now after just a few seconds of Sherlock’s lips on his brow, waiting for the peaceful moment to be over. For Sherlock to huff that they’re already late because of that _boring_ interview and storm out the door, sprinting wildly towards the snow to get his skis into the powder as quickly as possible.

Greg waits, and yet Sherlock doesn’t pull away at all. He just stands there. He brushes his lips across Greg’s forehead again. The corner next to his eye. The curve of his cheek. His lips.

_Putain_ , Greg would do anything for this man. He would stand tall in front of thousands of cameras, never touch a pair of skis again, take off his Team France jacket forever if it meant Sherlock was happy, smiling like he did for those precious seconds during the Parade of Nations, brimming and young as he waved to them up in the stands.

Greg kisses him back and closes his eyes, shivering once as their soft kiss echoes through the empty room. “ _Pourquoi tu fais ça_?” he whispers. 

Sherlock holds his face gently, more gently than he possibly ever has before, and kisses him again. The barest brush of cool lips across Greg’s mouth.

“No particular reason,” Sherlock says in a hush.

Greg winds one of Sherlock’s curls around his fingertip the way he likes to do. “That was not so bad, no?”

“No,” Sherlock agrees. He grins and runs a thumb along Greg’s jaw. “You missed a spot shaving here,” he whispers. He presses his lips to the place, then trails them along his chin. “And here.”

Greg’s head falls back as Sherlock’s lips reach his neck. “ _Tu es impossible . . ._ ”

Sherlock hums, and his tongue flicks out to taste Greg’s skin. “And here.”

Greg holds the back of Sherlock’s head with his hand and breathes a deep laugh. “It is amazing I put up with you.”

Sherlock’s lips wrap around the corner of his jaw in an open kiss. His voice rumbles in Greg’s ear with a beautiful sigh. “ _Va savoir pourquoi_.”

A distant door suddenly slams. Beyond the thin walls of the locker room, out in the hallway, quick footsteps sound. Ski boots smacking across laminate. Voices of two athletes animatedly speaking in Portuguese as they walk by.

Greg sighs as Sherlock’s mouth falls away from his skin. _Now_ the moment is over.

Sherlock finally steps back, shaking out his shoulders and hauling his bag of skis up with one arm. He reaches for the door after a last piercing glance at Greg. “Just wanted to remind you that you have something good in your life before we go out there and argue about the fifth gate angle for the rest of the day.”

Greg rolls his eyes as his lips still tingle. He follows Sherlock back out into the hallway, blinking in the harsh light from the fluorescent bulbs. “I still have John in my life even if you decide to be _un petit con_ ,” he mutters under his breath. “And also, you _will not_ take that angle on the fifth gate.”

“We’ll see,” Sherlock calls over his shoulder, striding away. 

Greg curses under his breath and follows Sherlock out to the bustling maze of the practice-run slopes. The booming chaos of lights and sound and people smacks him in the face. They give a quick, silent nod at each other before Sherlock heads to the lifts, and Greg takes his place alongside the other coaches down at the bottom, everyone clutching stopwatches and clipboards and walkie-talkies. 

For some reason, his cell service has pulled through enough to let him keep a solid signal, even way out here at Jeongseon. Greg pulls out his phone and turns it on so he can text Sherlock his final instructions for the practice runs, namely, “ _Do not take that angle on the 5th gate, you salaud._ ”

He jumps in surprise when his phone vibrates with a received text after it turns on. He shuts his eyes before looking down at it, expecting a text from Sherlock from the ski lift that Greg is an ignorant moron for holding him back from his ideal plans for the course, and that Sherlock knows what he’s doing, and that it’s a miracle Greg ever even set an Olympic Record without taking Sherlock-Holmes-approved angles on every gate.

He opens his eyes and looks down. 

Instead it’s from John.

_Received: Hey you. Know your phone is off. Maybe you’ll get this later watching Sherlock defy your orders on his practice runs. In the Para common room waiting to watch my two men look gorgeous on the telly. Lucky bastard, aren’t I? Going shooting later, most of the day. Dinner?_

And then, roughly thirty minutes after that text:

_Received: My man. I love you, I love you, I love you._

And:

_Received: p.s. Sexiest voice in that interview by a mile. Tell THAT to S._

Greg doesn’t realize his eyes have glossed over until he looks back up at the slope and realizes that he can’t distinguish the skiers from the gates. He wipes a quick arm over his eyes and sniffs, tilting his head self-deprecatingly when the coach next to him says, “Ah, a cold? Bad luck, that.”

He clutches his phone in his hand and stares unseeing at the snow. Out of nowhere, he remembers John’s face in those initial moments after Greg had stopped dead in his tracks at the edges of the trees and breathed out his name. That quick look of shocked recognition, followed immediately by a hot wave of something like shame. How Greg had stepped forward dumbly, ignoring Sherlock’s frantic, confused looks back and forth between them, then awkwardly tried to bend over and hug John in the monoski before both of them gave up and settled on a weird gloved handshake. How John had clenched his jaw and mumbled, “ _Jesus, when he said ‘his coach’, I didn’t realize . . ._ ” And all Greg had been able to do was stand there, staring down into a desperately missed pair of blue eyes, John’s glove still clutched in his fingers, as he said again like a broken record, “ _Putain, John Watson_.”

And now John Watson skis around on two feet, and shoots beautiful bullets whizzing across the snow, piercing their targets with a terrifying crack. The silver of his prosthesis glints like fire in the winter sun, and he texts Greg that he loves him after watching a reminder of how amazing Greg _used_ to be on international television.

_Mon dieu_ he misses him. They’d all parted ways after the Ceremony the night before, John claiming he’d sleep better if he knew Greg and Sherlock had a chance to catch up on rest and prepare themselves. 

And now John’s gun and his nordic skis and his blue eyes feel worlds away—a completely different universe from the Jeongseon stands where fans cheer on the practice runs, and skiers fly down the mountain on wings, and gates slap down to the earth after being hit by ninety-mile-per-hour poles.

He _misses_ him.

Greg pulls off his glove with his teeth to respond, his fingers numb and shaky, and not only from the cold.

_Sent: S will be delighted to hear. Shoot steady, mon coeur._

For some reason, Greg presses send before adding, “ _And I miss you_.”

He takes a few more seconds to picture how John must look now, the capable grip of his steady hands around the gun and trigger, the stillness of his shoulders, his leg planted firmly into the shining snow, the clench of his jaw . . .

But John never lets them go with him to his practices. Has always claimed it would be a waste of time to keep the two of them off the slopes. That they shouldn’t have to watch something as utterly boring as him standing in the snow shooting an unmoving target with a fake gun.

But Greg’s watched him compete. 

He’s watched John fire across the blinding snow in the middle of a race, his strong chest heaving to steady his breaths, his shoulders terrifyingly straight when he finally pulls the trigger. He’s stood there staring, breathless with awe, as Sherlock grabs his hand hidden in the folds of their jackets, and as both of them silently shiver at the fact that they get to _kiss_ that man. That he said _yes_ to them both all those winter nights ago. That he didn’t turn away in disgust when Sherlock hesitantly placed his palm on John’s shoulder, and Greg held John’s fingers to his lips and said, “ _Be with us, John. Both of us. Oui, like that. Mon coeur, please . . ._ ”

“ _Holmes, Sherlock. France,_ ” suddenly blasts across the grandstand speakers in an official-sounding voice. The crowd gasps in anticipation.

Greg blinks out of his thoughts just in time to witness Sherlock drop in from the top gate at the sound of the buzzer, flickering like a pinprick of red, white, and blue in the middle of the rolls of pure white snow. Flying through the hissing sky, slicing across the ice.

And everything immediately fades from Greg’s mind except the beautiful rush of Sherlock’s bent thighs, and the clean lines of his poles, and the song of his skis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French:  
> trop fatigue : too tired  
> arrêtes de te faire des films : don't dream too much / don't kid yourself (look, it's an idiom, ok? they don't translate perfectly but you get the idea . . .)  
> paon : peacock  
> c’était different : it was different  
> exact : right, correct (what it says on the tin)  
> ouah : wow  
> respire : breathe  
> on forme une équipe tous les deux : we are a team, you and I  
> pourquoi tu fais ça : why are you doing this?  
> va savoir pourquoi : God knows why / who knows why  
> un petit con : a little shit
> 
> \--
> 
> THANK YOU for all the lovely comments that have been left on this fic so far! You each deserve your own Olympics spotlight montages. I read them again and again when I need that extra boost. 
> 
> Heads up about posting: I usually wait until I have a future chapter in the wings to post the next one, but with the holidays coming up I'm not sure how much writing time I'll have for the next couple weeks. I figured we'd all rather get more of the story now than have to wait :) So, happy early holidays (or, depending on what you celebrate, happy late holidays) from me! But enjoy this now, because the next chapter might be slightly longer than usual to post.
> 
> Next time: It's Sherlock's Super-G prelims, and two words from chapter 1 that a lot of you have asked me about are finally going to make sense . . . :)


	9. Leave It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the new year!
> 
> Listen to "Leave It" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKgwL5O7YIY/)
> 
> All my gratitude, as always, to my beta bakerstmel, who took this chapter from a rambling mess and somehow lifted a fierce, clear John up out of the rubble.

_11 February 2018, 10:55 am_

 

Right, so, the Olympics is happening.

John yanks his muffler up over his chapped lips and tries to catch hints of what the official announcements are declaring in endless streams of French, Korean, and English. It’s the usual pre-competition robotic-sounding babble about the start time of the event, and the weather conditions, and how many athletes will run, and no outside food. John smirks to himself over the amount of poorly-concealed flasks and hidden granola bars he’s caught sight of so far.

The noise is nearly overwhelming; it pulses and heaves like it’s echoing in an endless loop off the walls of distant snow. 

He reaches a hand up to knead at his shoulder, then surreptitiously touches his upper back where he knows his tattoo reaches. He’d felt ridiculous the first few times he caught himself doing that in the weeks after it healed—like he’d transformed overnight into the textbook definition of ‘ex-RAF pilot who never learned how to be a normal bloke.’ 

But then, he hadn’t been thick enough not to recognize that even the imaginary press of the ink against his fingertips always brought warmth into his limbs. Made his prosthetic leg feel less like freezing steel. Made his chest relax. So he’d allowed himself this one area of his life where he could continue being a not-normal bloke, the whole dating two other men thing aside.

John had reached back and clutched the top of his tattoo with his whole palm that night he told those two other men the story of why he got it in the first place. It was just a month into it all—one breathtaking, unbelievable month that had been filled with laughter, and beautiful nerves, and heated glances, and sex. Oh God, the sex . . . And then John had woken up one day and suddenly known that he couldn’t be with the two of them for one minute longer unless they fully _knew_. One answer to one question, at least.

They’d all sat on the living floor in the dusk light, wordlessly agreeing not to sit on the furniture. And John had told them, with painful slowness, about the first day he ever tried to walk on his new leg. About gripping the standing bars, sweat dripping down his face, and the nurse rolling in front of him on a stool to hold his waist steady, telling him, “ _Right there, Group Captain. Just like that . . . there. Trust the leg; it’ll hold you. Yes . . ._ ” With no hint of irony in her voice that she was still calling him that, even after everything had been burned away and left back in the sand.

He couldn’t look them in the eyes as he told them about how another patient’s crutches had suddenly crashed to the tile floor, slamming a shattering crack through the room, and how John had finally come to in a heap on the ground who knows how many minutes later with three pairs of nurses’ hands on him, three calmly whispering voices. 

How he’d cried that night in his hospital room alone. How he’d dreamed of a sky as black as ink, and as endless as the seas, and Orion’s unblinking eye. How he’d called up a tattoo parlor the next morning on a whim.

A fresh gust of wind suddenly rips across John’s cheeks, blessedly pulling him out of the bleak white hospital room. John closes his eyes for a moment and flexes his toes in his shoe, then grits his teeth as his brain sends a corresponding wave of fire up his invisible right leg. He can feel hot nails pierce through the skin of his ghostly right ankle, cracking the bones apart and splitting the tendons, strand by strand. 

He breathes deeply through his nose the way he always tries to do when this happens, searching his mind for a pleasant thought to grab onto instead. 

He grins to himself when he finds one.

“ _It’ll be warm in the grandstands_ ,” Sherlock had whispered in his ear when they’d met up to hug good luck that morning in a rare empty corner of the Village. He’d said it low enough that Greg couldn’t hear even though he was standing a foot away—a fact that had made John feel guiltily grateful. 

Then there’d been Greg’s warm hand on his shoulder, those familiar brown eyes. He’d nodded once at John right before they walked away to catch the van. And even though John hadn’t even opened his mouth to say “I’m proud of you both” or “good luck,” he’d known that in the silence, the two of them had still understood. 

An odd tinge of loneliness settles now in the back of John’s throat, despite the fact he’s literally surrounded by a thronging crowd of people. He forces his numb, clumsy fingers to move within his gloves and pulls out his phone. His heart begins to race as he swipes it on, phantom pain in his leg now entirely forgotten.

But there are no missed calls waiting for him on the screen. No texts.

Not like he was hoping for a message, though; in fact, he’d be somewhat worried if Sherlock took moments away from his mental preparation to reach out to John about anything, serious or inane. And if Greg wasn’t following his normal phone-off tradition it would only signal to John that the world was about to end. 

So, all in all, no contact is a good sign. Perfectly normal. Nothing to be all out of sorts about.

And Sherlock is due to drop in on his first of two prelims runs in approximately nineteen minutes as “Athlete Number Ten,” soaring down the ice at his characteristic ninety miles per hour as if he isn’t being broadcasted around the entire world. As if a Gold isn’t at stake.

There’s nothing to worry about, really. Nothing unusual at all.

It’s just . . . the bloody Olympics.

It happens every four years. It’s perfectly ordinary. Nothing special.

John rises up on tip-toe to try and see over the crowd in front of him, cursing under his breath that there are _perfectly fine benches_ to sit on and yet everyone in the grandstands is still on their feet. He wonders for the umpteenth time whether he should just grit his teeth, bear the stares, and go and sit in the reserved accessible seating up front—where so far only one family with a young son using a wheelchair is seated.

Christ, but everyone would be able to see. And he’s wearing his full snow pants over his leg today, plus his snow boot fitted over his prosthetic foot, and so inevitably one of the Olympics organizers would approach him and explain that, “ _No, sir, this section is for viewers with disabilities,_ ” which in any other context would make him feel good, more like himself, the same way he’d felt back when he realized Sage-USA-BigAir hadn’t even noticed he was Para and not a regular athlete. 

But here, now, in front of roughly a thousand people and at least thirteen official cameras, the thought of having to ruck up his pantleg to prove his accessible-seating deservability is just too much.

Eleven o’clock comes and goes with a murmur of restlessness from the crowd. John doesn’t even sigh. He’s never seen a competition start on time in his entire life. No reason to think things should start working properly now, even at the Olympics.

Instead he hugs his arms tightly around his chest and shivers in a fresh gust of sharp wind. He peers through the sea of beanies and scarves and scans the people standing on the ‘official’ side of the rope near the finish line, trying to separate out the television coverage crews from the gear teams from the assistant coaches.

Greg’s down there somewhere too, he knows. Probably on a walkie with Sherlock communicating the latest wind and weather statistics, since Sherlock got it into his head a decade ago that having anyone he actually knew up at the top of the course with him would be a distraction, instead of an encouraging advantage like the rest of the bloody world would view it. 

They’re probably going over everything they’d been discussing in exhaustive detail last night at dinner—a dinner which John only shared with them for about five minutes since he’d caught a whiff of whispered questions in the adapted housing complex over how the hell that random British biathlete actually knew Sherlock Holmes.

John had bristled at the time. Who the fuck were all of them to assume it wasn’t four-time Olympic Gold medalist Greg Lestrade that the random British biathlete knew instead of Holmes? But then the anxiety had set in, that prickling feeling along the back of his neck, and even Sherlock hadn’t argued when John suggested they try to be a bit less conspicuous in the dining hall, at least.

He cranes his neck now, but he can’t catch a glimpse of silver hair in the overcast light—Greg never wears a beanie and then inevitably complains that his ears are cold—or even the sunglasses Greg always wears in the snow. 

Yet even though he can’t see him, the thought that Greg is less than fifty yards away brings John an odd mix of both comfort and unease. He wonders if Greg has also looked for him in the crowd. Has searched for him in the accessible seating and frowned when he couldn’t find him. Has wished that he could turn his phone on so he could check for a text from John.

Christ, he’s gone and turned into a hopeless pile of pathetic emotions, hasn’t he? Maybe they secretly inject extra self-pity into you after you film a featurette on all your hardships for the Paralympics broadcast. It wouldn’t surprise John, actually, the way the film crew had kept asking him questions during the shooting that were clearly designed by a group of people in fancy business suits to make him choke up and cry for the inspired viewers at home . . .

“Can’t imagine you can see a damn thing standing here,” says a voice next to him. “You don’t have height on your side, that’s for certain!”

John turns to see a woman who looks like the dictionary definition of a nervous mom, bundled up in a thick knitted scarf and American flag beanie and clutching a tumbler to her chest with similarly patriotic gloves. 

John’s hackles lower; she looks utterly harmless. “Yeah, well, it appears everyone decided we need to stand up despite the perfectly suitable benches,” he says, shooting her a fake grimace.

She shivers, and John suddenly places her accent as matching that Midwestern couple he’d met on their vacation out to California. Minnesota, they’d been from. Or was it Wisconsin?

“I told my Ron,” the woman says, “I told him, ‘Ronnie, we gotta be there a whole hour early to get a good spot. An hour!’ And my Ronnie got here right at ten and you know what? Stands already half full. We’re lucky we even got these seats.”

John winces in sympathy as a man on the other side of her shoots him what John could only describe as a dad-nod, bundled up so thoroughly John can only see the tip of his nose. 

John reluctantly lifts a hand in an odd wave, wondering if it’s dad-like enough. “Cor, yeah, bad luck that.”

“And I’m freezing my toot off!” the woman groans up at the clouds.

“Coldest day I’ve seen since I’ve been here, that’s for sure.”

“And these people are moving slower than molasses in January. We shoulda started ten minutes ago!”

John fights down a wave of weariness and nods while rubbing his neck. “Yeah, these things never start on time,” he manages to mumble back.

He definitely wasn’t lonely enough before to want the random ski-mom next to him to start trying to have anxiety-small-talk. No thanks. He tries to restrain himself from glancing between the course and the screen every five seconds, alternately searching for Greg while also making sure that he hasn’t somehow completely missed the first ten skiers’ runs, including Sherlock’s.

The ache to be standing next to Greg surprises him, somehow sharp and defined in the midst of the swarming chaos of the crowded slopes. He’s never been bothered before after waving off Sherlock and Greg to one of Sherlock’s competitions, never even batted an eyelash at the fact that he was sitting alone in the stands while the two of them finished up last minute prep together on the other side of the official rope.

But here, now . . . John closes his eyes to shut out the chaos and allows his restless mind to wander. 

He conjures up the warmth he’d felt the first morning he ever woke up in a bed beside Sherlock Holmes and Greg Lestrade, tangled in a mess of soft, sweat-damp sheets with Sherlock sprawled half across him, and Greg’s strong arm wrapped all the way across them both; two slow rhythms of sleepy, humid breath mixing effortlessly with his own. John had blinked dozens of times at the scene before him just in case it was a dream, then traced his hand gently over pale and tan shoulders to pull them from sleep. And he hadn’t hidden the sheen over his own eyes as he gazed quietly into nervous crystal blue and yearning deep brown, right before hoarsely whispering, “ _Let me stay_.” Then the two of them had simply responded with the beautiful sound of his murmured name. With soft, wet lips on his chest. His palms. His scars.

A buzzer sounds. 

John’s eyes fly open just in time to see the first skier peering down from the HD screen, sparkling in the white and red of the Canadian flag sewn across his lycra suit. Around him, a sea of phones rise up into the air, ready to take thousands of identical videos of the pinprick of a skier making his way down the winding course.

The snow reflects so fiercely in the Canadian’s goggles that they look pure white. John wonders how Greg feels now that the competition has officially started—that terrifying, teetering moment right before pushing off from the top of a run, unable to stop or turn back once the poles strike the ice. But then again, he’s rather used to all this, John suspects. The nerves and the anxiety and the entirety of your life’s work all coming down to one run on skis. And this is only the prelims. And Sherlock handles pre-race nerves like he’s simply bored waiting for a cup of tea to steep. 

_“Athlete Number Five. Zuev, Alexey. Russia.”_

John blinks. He hadn’t even registered skiers two through four run down the slope. Hadn’t noticed the cheers or the announcements or the times. Not even the applause. 

He rubs his palm over his mouth and tries to think of the last time he was ever at a skiing competition and couldn’t recite the stats and times of every skier prior to Sherlock’s run, rattling them off like he was giving orders back in the RAF, and realizes he can’t. It simply hasn’t happened. It unsettles him, even as a warm, familiar cord wraps itself around his ribs, settling deep in his gut. It isn’t often he allows himself to just stand still and remember . . .

“So where the heck ya from?”

John takes a slow breath through his nose and doesn’t quite turn his head to answer. “London.”

“We flew all the way over here from Wisconsin, dontcha know. Park Falls. Little town—only got 2,000 people. And took us three flights to get here! My Ronnie here has never even left the country before. And here we are now—Korea!”

John bites the inside of his cheek. “Wow, that’s—”

“I’m Maxine by the way.”

“Cor, sorry. Was so caught up watching. John.”

She shakes his hand so hard John nearly loses his balance on the narrow bench. 

She laughs with one great burst of sound. “Don’t know how you can even focus on the other skiers. They just got through number eight and I woulda sworn to my Ronnie that only one skier had gone.”

“ _Athlete Number Nine. Ullrich, Sebastian. Croatia._ ”

John’s heart does an unexpected lurch. He sucks in a breath, then forces himself to exhale and relax his shoulders. 

“I . . . I honestly couldn’t even tell you the last skier’s time,” he admits.

Maxine gives him a hard stare, then laughs. “Coulda fooled me! Heck, dear, by your face I woulda thought you were standing in line at the Pick ‘n Save. You’re the calmest looking one here, and I’m including the bored cameramen.”

John fights with himself not to clutch his hands together behind his back. Lifetimes ago he would’ve puffed up his chest a bit at that, introduced himself with his proper title, took some pride in the military focus that had seared itself beneath his skin over all those years.

Now, though, he feels pathetic. He may have pulled rank the other day to get back at Sherlock in the Village, but somehow the thought of a true RAF-bearing on his body the way it looks these days makes his throat tight with nausea. He feels like an imposter. A limp uniform fluttering in the breeze without a body inside it.

He shrugs, buying a few more seconds of time. “Just hold the anxiety in better, I guess. It festers more that way,” he half-grins, joking, before quickly angling his body away.

She nods, missing every social cue on earth to stop talking. “Ah, so you’re just a closed book then, eh? My Shanie’s like that.” Her eyes grow wide and glossy. “Shane Williams. Team USA. He’s 24th in line up there, dontcha know?”

John silently acknowledges the hundreds of baristas and flight attendants and retail workers who have had to hear all about Shane Williams from Team USA. 

He tears his gaze away from the course long enough to give her a quick smile. “Ah, congratulations.”

A gasp rushes through the crowd, saving him from saying anything more. John frantically scans the course to see that the Croatian just skied out on the second to last gate—practically unheard of at this calibre, not once they make it past the tightest hairpin turns up at the top of the slope.

A groan of sympathy from the crowd washes over John’s skin, rattling against his chest.

“So anyway,” Maxine says, after adding her own “aww” to the chorus, as if she didn’t just watch someone’s Olympic dreams shatter on the side of the mountain. “You standing here for your own kid? Got that English flag on his helmet, or should I say British? I never know which is the correct—”

_“Athlete Number Ten. Holmes, Sherlock. France.”_

John jerks his head up just as the HD screen beside him zooms in on a familiar black skull bandana, sharp and menacing as it glares down over a mountain of piercing snow.

His blood stops.

John marvels to himself how only Sherlock’s goggles somehow manage to look _alive_. Not simply black plastic to block out the sun, but rather two piercing, dangerous eyes picking apart the course inch by inch with a laser stare, not letting even the smallest snowflake slip by their punishing gaze.

Greg had said pretty much the same thing the first time John ever joined him to watch Sherlock ski a full Super-G course together, just a handful of days after being reunited in the trees. “ _Merde_ ,” Greg had murmured, nudging John’s arm, “ _he sure knows how to stare down a course, non?_ ” And John had suddenly remembered standing shoulder to shoulder with Greg Lestrade thirteen years before, back when Greg still spoke with his parents, and when his own goggles reflected the blinding snow just like Sherlock’s did, and when his voice would slip back into French every fourth word.

And John still misses that voice, even now—the way his accent had been so thick John hardly knew what he was saying half the time, and the way Greg had still spoken to him for hours. Had lain awake with him half the night as they used to kiss, telling him about this, and this, and that. Calling him an odd mishmash of Jean and John and Joan and Gene before John had finally pressed hesitant fingers over Greg’s mouth, giddy throughout his entire body, and whispered, “ _Why not just J?_ ”

And now John barely has time to process that he’s about to watch one of the loves of his life drop in on the _Olympics_ when Maxine sucks in a gasp, seemingly unaware that John hasn’t even answered her question.

“Ooh, that Frenchman! I remember him from Worlds. Good god, but he’s dreamy.” She elbows John. “You heard of him, yeah?” Her face oddly falls, then, and she goes on before John can sputter out a response. “Sad, you know, what happened to him in Sochi.” She drops her voice, leaning closer to his ear to be heard over the din of the crowd. “Drugs, I heard. Such a shame for someone like him. And to think, he probably coulda been—”

“Could’ve been other reasons for him dropping out,” John cuts back, then winces at the harsh tone of his voice. He tries to think of an apology for a few moments, then gives up and resigns himself to silence. Maybe then she’ll actually take a hint and stop trying to—

“Man sure is nice to look at though,” Maxine sighs, as if John didn’t almost chew her out ten seconds ago. She winks at him. “You wouldn’t know, being a man yourself, but he’s easy on the eyes, that Frenchman. Most of the other ski moms I know all swoon over his coach, that Lestrade. And I’ll admit, I had his poster on my wall too back when I was young! But these days? For me? Ah, it’s gotta be Holmes.”

John swallows a knot in his throat and barely remembers to pity-laugh in time. “I’ll remember to look more closely next time,” he says. “Look at him through your eyes.”

She looks like she’s going to ask him something else, when the buzzer sounds. The crowd around them all let out a wild cheer as Sherlock Holmes bursts through the starting gate to a flurry of ice.

John nearly falls off the bleacher, he strains so quickly to try and see. 

And it’s been dozens of times that John has watched Sherlock Holmes drop in on a course. Hundreds. He has spent collective _days_ of his life over the past three years doing nothing but crane his neck from the bottom of a mountain so he can track Sherlock’s skis through the snow like two fragile matchsticks. He’s watched him in freezing temperatures, and snow, and rain, and even hail. He’s watched him on the telly from a warm sofa with Greg’s familiar arm around his back. Watched him from pixelated videos texted to his phone over in California. Watched him on the days he feels perfectly normal, and the days his right leg burns and screams. He’s watched him at sunrise, and at the golden light of sunset, and in his dreams.

And still, watching him has never even come close to feeling like it does now.

John forgets to even worry about schooling his features as he rises on his toes along with the rest of the crowd to watch the most anticipated run of the entire afternoon. He doesn’t even try to close his mouth.

Sherlock’s speed around the first gate is so crisp it shoots up a wall of snow three feet taller than any of the nine skiers before him. 

Around the second, sharp and pinpointed as a needle; pure, dizzying velocity.

The third gate . . . and John’s mind suddenly takes a hard left turn.

What was it that Sherlock and Greg had been talking about at the table last night at dinner? They’d been going at it in French, but John had still managed to catch something about one of the gates . . . Sherlock’s angle in approaching it . . . was it the fifteenth?

Back on the slope, Sherlock’s poles reflect the blinding glint of the sun as he whips around the fourth gate, stunning the crowd as he soars across the HD screen. John blinks sudden water from his eyes, wondering when was the last time he even blinked. 

Sherlock’s speed picks up for the fifth gate, propelling him down to the widest stretch of the course, the Downhill curves, and _ah_ , that was it. The _fifth_ gate, and Greg staring daggers at Sherlock across the dinner table, practically demanding that he would not . . . . something in French . . . something about his speed? His line on the turn?

But Sherlock swings around the fifth gate as easily as all the others. Absolutely in control and perfectly at ease.

John hazards a glance at the scoreboard to check Sherlock’s time, shivering as an odd release of tension works its way through his chest. He feels ridiculous for the flood of nerves he’d had around that last gate. But it was the look on Greg’s face last night, the urgency of his voice . . .

But it doesn’t matter now as Sherlock flies around gate number ten. John sees that Sherlock’s currently skiing in third place time, and John would have to be an idiot not to know that he’s doing it entirely on purpose. John hasn’t called him a drama queen more times than he can count for no reason. The way Sherlock likes to infuriatingly glide through a preliminary run with his eyes half-closed, and then storm in on the second run with guns blazing, skis trembling, the mountain practically _shaking_ —

Christ, _focus_.

John swallows over a dry throat as he calmly tracks Sherlock down the rest of the mountain, wrapping his arms around his stomach so he doesn’t hold them behind his back in some parody of parade rest. He prickles at the back of his neck at the familiar-but-hated sensation of every pair of eyes around him being trained on Sherlock too, as if John is owed some sort of dibs over him before everyone else, like some possessive creep.

“Ah, that’s a beauty!” Maxine cries, just as Sherlock easily squats over the finish to secure his time, and the crowd erupts in a cheer so loud it’s like they don’t even realize Sherlock Holmes just skied at only 60% of his full potential. 

John reluctantly holds up his hands to applaud along with everyone else, suddenly more conscious than he’s ever been in his life over how enthusiastically he’s cheering—whether it’s in line with everyone else’s, or too much. Whether it’s too little.

But he claps, and nobody looks. Nobody even notices he’s standing there. 

For one shockingly fierce moment, John wants to stand up tall, point towards where Sherlock is bending over by the finish line to catch his breath while he waits for his official time, and proclaim to everyone that _he_ knows Sherlock Holmes. Yes, _him_. That man in the middle of the grandstands with the fake leg, who’s always too cold. He knows _Sherlock Holmes_. 

But then the reverse of that statement would be broadcast to the crowd. That Sherlock Holmes, who’s calmly waving to the fans after his time is announced, basking in the cheers and the cameras and the lights . . . that _he_ knows the man with the fake leg, and who’s always too cold. He talks to him. Hangs out with him.

Kisses him. Caresses his scars.

John shudders at the thought. 

For a split second, he thinks he feels Sherlock’s gaze on him from behind his goggles, pinning John in the center of the crowd like a beam of light. Sherlock’s so far away, and yet John imagines he can still see the heaving of his lean chest, the lines of his muscles through his suit, the wet flicker of his tongue. He wonders if he should whistle to him, should raise his hands in a wild wave, should scream his name . . .

But then the gaze is gone, and Sherlock turns to ski away to the waiting area. And John has just missed his chance to declare to the entire world that he knows Sherlock Holmes. Not that he ever wanted it to begin with. No, not at all.

Maxine lets him stand in blessed silence for the next few skiers, John sneaking glances at his phone every few minutes to see if Greg’s texted, and Maxine leaning her head against her husband’s shoulder.

But out of nowhere, midway through the eighteenth skier’s run, she pops up her head and sucks in a breath.

“So which one’s your son? When’s he up?” She grins conspiratorially. “We gotta know so we can cheer extra for him!”

John clenches his hands into fists. He wonders when he ever got old enough to look like he has a son older than the alpine skiing age limit, as if he was worried about trying to have a kid back when he was just starting his second year with the RAF.

Maxine looks at him expectantly, innocently, as if her question, _who are you here for?_ , isn’t one John’s tried to come up with a fake answer to a hundred times already and failed.

He clears his throat, wondering if she’d noticed that his cheering for one particular skier so far had been mildly more exuberant than for all the others. Or maybe it was less?

“Here for Holmes, actually,” he finally says, staring straight ahead with his hands tucked casually in his pockets.

Her eyes grow wide. “Sherlock Holmes?”

John nods.

She throws back her head and laughs. “Aw jeez, and you let me stand here goin’ off earlier on how I wanna smack the lips off him. And he’s your friend!” She guffaws up to the clouds, her breath a huge white puff. “Gee, well, how in hell did you come to meet someone like him?”

It’s a question John has asked himself when he wakes up all at once in the middle of the night. When Sherlock’s arms are wrapped tight around his trembling chest, his thigh shoved into the warm creases in the sheets where John’s should be. When John wonders what the hell could have possibly possessed a man like Sherlock Holmes to place his palm on John’s scarred shoulder. 

“ _Why?_ ” John had asked that one night, looking mostly at Sherlock, because it made sense, somehow, that Greg might still want to hold him close. To kiss him. He knew what John used to be like, after all. Before . . . . well, _before_.

But Sherlock . . . how could he want . . . what could he see . . .?

And Sherlock had given him a frown of complete incomprehension. “ _Why not?_ ” he’d whispered. He’d stepped closer to John as Greg had moved around behind him, tentatively rolling his heat along John’s back. Sherlock’s breath had touched John’s cheek. “ _You are . . ._ ” he’d breathed. He’d touched John’s face with his thumb. “ _John, you are . . ._ ”

And then he’d kissed him. The most impossible thing to ever happen on planet earth. And then he’d leaned over John’s shoulder and kissed Greg Lestrade behind him, as Greg wrapped his arms around John’s chest. The second most impossible thing to ever happen on planet earth.

And then the third: John breathed in the faintest whisper, “ _God. Please._ ”

Maxine is still waiting for his response. Up at the top gate, the nineteenth skier drops in to a bursting, bright cheer.

“I went on a skiing trip once to France,” John says, yelling over the roar of the crowd. “He was staying at the same lodge. We just became friends.”

She eyes him with a wide gaze. “You can ski?”

John opens his mouth to answer when the breath stops in his lungs. 

He’d been about to answer her question, “ _You ski?_ ” with a shrug and a quick laugh and a, “ _Yeah, learned as a kid!_ ”

But she hadn’t asked him that. She’d said, “ _You_ can _ski_?”

She’d seen his leg, then. Who knows how long ago. And this whole time she’s been being nice. Purposefully _not_ asking or staring or urging him to sit. 

Years since the crash and John still can never tell which option would be worse—the noticing or the not.

“Ah,” he says, glancing down at his foot. A sharp burst of anger surprises him, pulsing through his stomach in hot waves. He reminds himself with a clench of his jaw that she isn’t worth it, that he needs to stay focused for Sherlock’s second run. He clears his throat and rolls back his shoulders. “Ah, yeah I can . . . I can ski.”

“Or was it before—?”

“Er, no,” John cuts her off, not as gently as he could have done. “No, it was after.”

She gives him a look which fiercely reminds John of the look he’d gotten from one of his nurses back in London who’d been a mom of five. Then she nods up at the screen displaying the leaderboard, Sherlock’s name and the French flag still sitting nonchalantly in third place.

“You hit it off, then? Come out all this way to watch him ski? Brave the cold?”

“Yep.”

“Awfully nice friend, you are. But then again, who would turn down coming to watch the Olympics?”

The buzzer signaling the next skier blares across the snow, and the crowd gives an extra loud cheer for the upstart Korean eighteen-year-old on his international debut.

He shrugs, as if Sherlock Holmes’ interest in someone like him is as mystifying as why the sky is blue.

“We just hit it off, I gu—”

A groan through the crowd cuts him off. The kid is caught in the barriers along the side, not fallen, but still trying to extricate himself from the mess of orange fencing and loose skis.

“Ahh, poor dear,” Maxine mutters. “Everyone was saying he could be the underdog . . . And on his home turf, too . . .” The entire world seems to hum in sympathy along with her.

John distantly registers Maxine leaning over to say something to her husband while he looks up at the sky. Clouds are rolling in, threatening the arrival of the supposed incoming storm. He wonders whether it will affect Sherlock’s event, and feels the beginnings of a headache at the thought of Sherlock being held up by some sort of delay.

God, the three of them don’t deserve to go through the stress of Sherlock being postponed, Christ only knows . . .

“—told him it was offensive but he’s insisting and all, and seeing as how you know we can’t see a damn thing here, and . . . . ah heck, I’m so sorry. Just forget it all, dear.”

John reels, his mind frantically trying to piece together what the hell is happening as Maxine gives him the guiltiest look known to man, and Ron looks incredibly anxious behind her.

He licks his lips, forcing himself not to reach over his shoulder to rub his upper back. “Sorry I . . . It’s so loud here, you know? I couldn’t hear you.”

Maxine’s face brightens, then falls, then settles on an awkward mix of nerves. Ron finally steps up closer to her and speaks over her shoulder.

“Maxine’ll have my head for this, I’m sure, but we were wondering, seeing as how this might be Shanie’s only run—”

“Ronnie! Don’t jinx him!”

“—and since it’s so hard to see, and since that front section is mostly empty . . .” Ron tips his head. “Was wondering if you could maybe say we’re in your group. Take us up there with you?”

John’s chest does a complicated pulse. His mouth goes dry. 

Suddenly, he isn’t standing in the grandstands at the Winter Olympics. 

No . . . instead he’s standing in front of Greg and Sherlock about to sit down and take off his leg for the very first time since they kissed him. Since they asked him to _be_ with them. He’s looking at them both, pleading with his eyes for them not to say anything when he finally removes the sock, and awkwardly slips out of his shirt using one arm. When he drops his leg to the floor. 

He’s looking down at his hands, his left one shaking, whispering, “ _I’m sorry . . ._ ”

But now, John pauses and takes a deep breath. Remembers what happened after. Unclenches his fist as he glances down at the roped off seating up front.

“Yeah, sure,” John hears himself say. 

He blinks. He’d meant to say, “ _Fuck the fuck off and leave me the fuck alone. Who are you to ask me such a fucking thing?_ ” 

But now he’s barely keeping his balance on the bench with an armful of grateful Maxine, and Ron giving him the dad-nod again over her shoulder.

Well, what’s done is done. No sense in questioning his own sanity now.

John doesn’t look up from his feet as they all manoeuvre their way down the stairs, zigzagging through the crowds. He doesn’t look at anyone else’s face except the Olympics course attendant as he explains their situation, briefly gesturing to his leg. As he says that he’s there to watch his nephew Shane Williams compete, and that these are his parents.

He doesn’t even really remember what he says in response when Maxine and Ron throw endless thanks at him again once they’re seated in the very front row of of the disability seating with a limitless view. The snow is so close up it nearly burns his eyes. 

Once more, he searches for Greg, but doesn’t find him.

John settles back to awkwardly wait, begrudgingly grateful for the chance to sit. He studiously ignores the thousands of eyes at his back as skier after skier completes their run, then barely remembers in time to enthusiastically clap along with Ron and Maxine for Shane Williams of Team USA, who completes his run without falling or skiing out much to his parents’ teary-eyed approval. 

John glances at the time above the finish line and suppresses a grimace. The poor kid’ll never make it to the finals with that number. Not even close.

“We’re just so grateful to be sitting up here so we can see,” Maxine gushes to him at some point, still weepy over the wave Shane sent to them from the finish line. “So, so grateful, dear.” John hates himself that the only response he gives her is a tight nod. 

By the time the break comes between rounds John is nearly bursting with restless energy, burning hot with electric crackles just beneath his freezing skin. The fact that he hasn’t yet caught sight of Greg even once fills him with an odd sense of prickling unease. He turns to Maxine and Ron as he starts to stand.

“Just gonna find the loo,” he says over the loud din of the crowd.

Maxine looks at him like he just spoke Spanish to her. “The what?”

“The l—the restroom,” John says.

She nods and waves, adding that they’ll guard his seat with their very lives.

John thinks he forgets to fully respond as he strides away through the chaos. He pulls off a glove with his teeth, whips out his phone, and types out an agonizingly slow message with his freezing fingers, haphazardly avoiding bumping into people as he goes.

He gets halfway through his ramboing text to Greg when he stops. He looks up once at the sky, takes a breath, then deletes the whole thing. He shoves his phone back in his pocket, text-unsent, followed by his hands.

The last thing Sherlock and Greg need now is John texting them like a lonely orphan, unable to occupy himself for just a few bloody hours in the middle of the Olympics.

He blindly walks towards where there appear to be massive lines for the restrooms, even though he now realizes he doesn’t actually have to go. But then his phone buzzes in his pocket, making him nearly jump out of his skin. 

He whips it out, heart racing, and answers without even glancing at the screen.

“Hey.”

“ _Hey yourself._ ”

Something throbs through John’s body. He takes a reeling step backwards, pausing in the middle of the chaos, then freezes as it all settles into place.

The voice on the other end sounds like gunsmoke and sand. Like jet engines humming down to a purr after a plane lands.

“ _You still there?_ ”

“Y—yes. I . . .”

John’s lips shake over the words that haven’t rolled across his tongue in years. 

“Wing Commander.”

“ _Ah Christ, don’t you try and ‘Wing Commander’ me. Thought I taught you better than that, eh?_ ”

John breathes out a weak laugh, then blinks up at the sky, his eyes nearly watering. His mouth forms the word so carefully, it’s like it’ll break apart between his teeth. As if the word itself could roll back down his throat and choke him, knocking him dead in the snow. Could strip him naked, sharp particles of deep red sand dragging across his skin.

He licks his lips.

“James.”

“ _Ah, see there? Knew you knew better than all that Commander shite. That’s more like it._ ”

John sniffs, suddenly unable to tell whether the snot in his nose is from the sharp cold or something different, something else entirely.

James Sholto isn’t silent long enough for him to figure it out.

“ _Now listen here. John fucken Watson. Never thought I’d live to see the day in my life when I turned on me telly, hoping to watch some idiots fling themselves down some mountains all the way over in Korea, and suddenly I see a fifteen fucken minute piece on how RAF hero and Distinguished Flying Cross Recipient John bloody Watson is skiing and shooting his way through the Olympics for Great Britain. Glory me._ ”

John is surprised he doesn’t somehow sink to his knees. 

“You saw the piece, then.”

The voice on the other end of the phone sighs, and John feels it curl through his ear and straight into his blood, between his ribs.

“ _John fucken Watson. I sure fucken did_.”

He clutches the phone with both hands as he tries to make his way to the edges of the crowd. He’s breathing like he’s just finished a biathlon, not simply taken ten steps. He presses up against a barricade and plugs one ear with his finger, suddenly desperate for the first time in years to hear the voice that he thought would be the last voice he ever heard on earth.

“Look . . .” John takes a deep breath, wondering when the jacket around his chest got so tight. “Wow, it’s . . . I’m sorry I . . . sorry I didn’t stay in . . . well, you know. That I didn’t call to—”

“ _Aw, fuck off with all that, Johnny. That all isn’t why I’m calling. You know it._ ”

John closes his eyes. He can still hear it over the fire ripping through his helicopter. The rough crack of the blades exploding. His own voice screaming curses into his headset, his composure gone.

That voice in his ear, wrapping tight around his limbs, replacing his blood . . . _Group Captain, come in. Group Captain Watson, come in. Give location. Did you just . . .? Dammit, Watson, follow orders. Return to your squadron. Now. Group Captain signal you can hear this. We’re losing—stay in the air. Christ, just stay in the air. . . Group Captain? Come i—fuck . . . John!_

“— _know you don’t need to be giving any apology to me. That’s right bullshit._ ”

John clears his throat and looks down at his hand. It isn’t covered in blood. “Right, yeah. Thanks.”

“ _But soon as I seen you on that telly? I thought, I have to call this motherfucker. In the bleeding Olympics and didn’t even tell his old mates!_ ”

John’s throat tightens. A sudden hot rush of embarrassment he didn’t know he could feel washes over his skin. 

“Just the Paralym—”

“ _And don’t give me any of that horse shite about the Paralympics not being the same. It’s the fucken same_.”

John huffs a surprised laugh; he can practically hear James’ answering smile through the phone. His palm itches, almost as if he can still feel the throttle lever curving perfectly into his skin.

“ _You always were the same, Johnny. Haven’t changed a bit_.”

John wipes his hand over his eyes, not even knowing why, then massages the corner of his forehead. 

He lets out a low chuckle. “Guess so.”

“ _So. The fucken Olympics. Our Johnny in the fucken Olympics! And I find out about it sitting on my arse on the sofa next to Margot eating a plate of fucken lasagna!_ ”

“Christ, I . . . You know I would’ve reached out and told you, but—”

“ _What’d I just tell you? Stop apologizing, man. I understand ye, if anything._ ”

“Right, sorr—er, yeah. Thanks.”

An awkward silence falls over the call, and John wonders if the soft rushing sound he can hear on the other end is the sound of James Sholto breathing. The world continues to hum and churn around him, spectators taking advantage of the break to swarm the restrooms and concession stands, calling across the crowds to get the attention of family and friends and rubbing their hands together with dramatic moans to try and stay warm.

And John suddenly feels like a statue in the middle of it all. A statue with a large piece missing—broken off and lying in pieces in the snow.

James clears his throat on the other end. His exhale sounds like a hum.

John blinks, and his eyes stay closed, and he’s suddenly back on his first day in the RAF Academy, standing at attention for Wing Commander Sholto, sweating with nerves, and opening his mouth to say “yes sir” and instead mortifyingly letting out, “ _Yes mum!_ ”

It would be nearly eight years before he ever got the chance to tell Wing Commander Sholto, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the doorway of a tent watching the sun sink over the desert, their thighs pressed together . . . . tell him that John never actually had a mum to begin with. That it was one faceless foster parent after another. An old duffel bag never fully unpacked.

That had been the night their fingertips touched in the cooling sand. The only time.

John takes a deep breath. 

“Look I’m . . .” he suddenly catches himself with his feet spread, one arm behind his back, and he purposefully slouches against the barricade, shoving his hand in his pocket. “I don’t know why I never replied to your emails. I read them—all of them. I don’t know why I never wrote back.”

“ _Johnny, you don’t owe me anything, you know? Do you hear me? Nothing._ ”

“Still.”

“ _If you read them . . . you know I’m not angry at you anymore then, yeah? That I’m not . . . I don’t._ ”

John clenches his fist hard enough to feel the prick of his nails through his glove.

“I disobeyed orders.”

“ _You saved your men. You did what most wouldn’t’ve had the balls to do._ ”

“You told me to fly back.”

There’s a pause on the other end; a shaky exhale.

“ _Christ, Johnny, I’m not angry at you. You . . . you survi—fucken hell._ ”

John can’t answer back. The silence drags on. Far off in the distance, halfway across the world, the buzzer sounds for the official start of the second round of Super-G prelims.

“ _Look, maybe I shouldn’t’ve called like this, so out of the blue. I know we haven’t . . . But I just . . . When I saw you on the telly, I couldn’t believe . . ._ ” 

“No, I’m . . . it’s good to hear you. Your voice.”

“ _You sound just the same._ ”

“Thought I’d sound different? Ancient?”

“ _Nah, just wondered if you’d sound like a fucken robot with your bionic leg and all._ ”

John laughs through his nose, shaking his head. He stumbles aside just in time not to be run over by a crowd of people all rushing towards the far end of the barricade—no doubt one of the skiers passing through to grab the lift. John cranes his neck but can’t see who it is.

James sighs.

“ _Well look man, you’re doing alright for yourself yeah? I mean, fucken Olympics ain’t so bad. Not as prestigious as what I got going on, but you’re not too far behind._ ”

John doesn’t fight his small smile. “I guess I am, yeah.”

He doesn’t miss the hesitation in James’ voice. 

“ _And . . . where you even living these days, then?_ ”

“The same. London.”

“ _You ski in the middle of London? Buy fancy snow machines with all your big-time athlete quid?_ ”

The joking familiarity makes John’s cheeks burn hot.

“Har har. No, that’s all in France.”

He waits to get ribbed for going on skiing holidays in France like some ridiculous celebrity, but instead he hears James lick his lips through the phone.

“ _So, London and France, then . . . alone?_ ”

John swallows hard. Remembers the countless times he’s sat down at a breakfast table to two pairs of eyes quietly glancing up, two mugs of coffee raised briefly in hello, two voices murmuring his name, glad that he’s there. One head leaning back for a kiss to warm lips, and another head bent down over an iPad, covered in messy curls.

“No. Not alone.”

James doesn’t press the issue. John can’t decide whether that makes him relieved or sharply sad.

“ _Well, good. Saw you were skiing on two feet there on the telly. Those clips they showed of your training in the States. I mean, Christ you’re . . . you’re an Olympian._ ”

John’s throat feels hot and a bit sticky. He rubs the back of his neck, then reaches back further to rest his palm over the top of his back.

“Friend of mine helped design the adapted skis. I didn’t . . . I didn’t realize that spotlight thing was so . . . detailed.”

James practically guffaws. 

“ _Christ, Johnny, you ain’t even watched it yet?_ ”

“I haven’t.”

“ _You even realize it had aired?_ ”

“I . . . I guess not.”

“ _Well, maybe I understand that._ ”

“I got a tattoo.”

John frowns, open-mouthed. The words had tumbled across his lips before he could even fully think them through, and now it feels like the most ridiculous thing he’s ever said. That _that’s_ what he wanted to tell his old Wing Commander—the man who lead him through the skies for more than a decade. The man who touched his fingertips. The man whose voice was the last voice John would ever hear.

The man John hasn’t seen since a silent visit in an Afghanistan hospital.

But James just whistles through his teeth.

“ _Glory me, finally got my name tattooed in the heart on your bicep, then?_ ”

A cold sweat rushes across John’s skin. “What . . .?”

“ _You know, my name. ‘Mam.’ You finally got it inked onto ya after all these years?_ ”

Relief shatters through him. John realizes he’s gripping his upper back hard enough to hurt, and he drops his hand back into his pocket. 

“Har har,” he says again. He looks around briefly, then lowers his voice.

“It’s . . . it’s of Orion, actually. On my back.”

The line is silent for a long time. So silent John thinks that maybe the call has dropped. His hand shakes, and he’s just about to look down at the screen to see if he’s been talking to a piece of metal and plastic in his palm for the last thirty seconds when James releases an odd shaky breath through the phone.

“ _Well, John fucken Watson_.”

John swallows hard. Neither of them add anything more.

“Hallooo!”

John barely glances up at the yelled greeting, then looks back down at his feet.

“Well, enough about me. What are you doing? And—and Margot, your kids—?”

“Hallooo! John!”

John looks up frowning, irritation prickling up his neck as he spots Maxine waving to him wildly from where she’s standing with one foot up on the bottom edge of a trash can.

“You’re gonna miss the start, dear! Come on!”

John waves at her, forcing a smile, then cups his palms around the phone, suddenly panicked deep in his chest.

“Ah, shit. You know, now’s actually not the best . . . I have to—”

“ _Christ, Johnny, are you at the bleeding Olympics right now?_ ”

“Yeah, I—”

“ _Ah, fucken hell. Thought you wouldn’t be there for another week after I checked the schedule. Jesus Christ, John Watson stepping away from the bloody Olympics just to take a phone call._ ”

John laughs. “Sure sounds like me, yeah.”

“ _Fuck off from here, then. Blow my sorry arse a kiss from the podium next week._ ”

“Ah fuck off, you’ll jinx it. If anything I’ll be blowing a kiss to your Margot, not your sorry arse. Kiss and a wink.”

“ _Ah see, now there’s the John Watson I know. There’s the man back._ ”

Sweat trickles down John’s neck. He hadn’t realized he _wasn’t_ being the John Watson that James Sholto knew.

He wonders which is the John Watson Greg knows. Or Sherlock . . .

“ _Bugger off, then. Go back to your bleeding Olympics._ ” 

Then, after a pause so small John wonders if it even happened:

“ _I’m right glad you answered, Johnny. Very glad._ ”

James’ voice is uncharacteristically soft. John has the sudden realization that James has been talking to him in a room separate from his wife. That he’s lowered his voice so she can’t hear. It does something strange to his stomach.

“Me too.”

“ _And look, I . . . Ah, fuck. I’ll just say it. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you. That day I visited. I just couldn’t . . . and you looked so . . . Christ, lying there . . . told myself I wouldn’t get all like this, but you have to know—”_

“James . . .”

“ _I’ve told myself for years I owed you that, at least. To tell you—_ ”

“James, you don’t need—”

“John! Good gracious they’re starting! They’re dropping in!”

John nearly groans in frustration as he covers the phone with his hand and looks up to call back to Maxine. “Right, one minute!”

But when he turns back to the call, James starts talking before he can force his lips to form any words.

“ _Well anyway. Enough about all that. You have to go walk around at the bleedin’ Olympics. Remember that kiss for me, eh?_ ”

John blanches before he remembers. “Right, yeah. When I come in last you’ll see it.”

“ _Superstitious wanker_.”

A rejoinder insult flies up in John’s mouth before he for some reason swallows it down. He takes two steps towards the grandstands where the first skier is already halfway down the mountain. The snow crunches like sand beneath his boots. He can feel it in the toes of his right foot.

“Goodbye, James.”

“ _You’re alright, John._ ”

John stares down at his phone in his hand after the call hangs up for a long, long time.

 

\--

 

It’s even colder now than it was an hour before. John blows useless warm air into his freezing hands as he unseeingly watches the first nine skiers complete their second prelims runs.

Maxine had nearly had a conniption when he finally came back to join them at their seats, nervously chattering on about how they thought they’d scared him away, and how Ronnie was trying to think of a reason to stay in their seats without John. She’d asked him how he even had such good phone reception up here anyway, and how insane the line was for the “lo-lo” or whatever he called it, and whether he was just talking to _the_ Sherlock Holmes.

It had taken all of John’s emotional energy to finally muster up a vague answer of, “Nah. Just an old friend.”

Before them, the eighth skier—the Croatian—skis out again, this time up near the fifth gate. A groan rolls over the crowd, everyone recognizing that this poor man’s Olympic experience is completely over.

“Poor dearie,” Maxine murmurs. Ron pats her arm distractedly while gazing off in the distance.

John’s silently convincing himself that the ache he feels in his right knee isn’t real when a hushed breath of anticipation rolls across the crowd in a humming wave—one which could only signal the start of Sherlock’s run. The bleachers creak and groan as everyone leans forward to see.

“ _Athlete Number Ten. Holmes, Sherlock. France. First run 1:31.21_ ”

Sherlock pushes off on the screen; the skull is swallowed by a wall of fog.

John squints his eyes and trains them to the nearly-invisible top of the course where Sherlock is hunkering down against the earth for his sharp second turn, nearly hidden by the cloud of icy spray from his skis. The screen zooms in on his bandana and goggles, reflecting miles and miles of pure white snow in the shining lenses.

Christ, John could watch him like this forever. The strong lines of his thighs, and the whip of wind whistling over his shoulders, and the familiar black skull hissing through the air like a clawing ghost, sucking up everything in its path as Sherlock flies, and flies, and flies . . .

It suddenly seems absolutely impossible that Afghanistan and helicopters and prosthetic legs can even _exist_ in the same universe as Sherlock Holmes skiing down a mountainside.

Sherlock whips around his third gate, a perfect, beautiful turn. His skis move like white bones extending from his own graceful body, reaching out for the fourth gate like elegant fingertips, gently pushing aside the snow like a hot blade through soft ice. John steals a quick glance at the screen off to the side, and his mouth drops open at the extreme close-up view.

Sherlock’s body is so still, so effortlessly _steady_ , as if he isn’t pushing himself to the absolute physical limit soaring down a cliff of ice. As if he isn’t skiing at ninety miles per hour with only the muscles of his legs and stomach to keep him tethered to the earth.

He’s beautiful. Beautiful in a way that makes a sharp hotness tighten at the back of John’s throat. That makes his fingertips itch.

Sherlock reaches his fourth gate, and a sudden cry of excitement from the crowd makes John look at the blinking red clock above the finish line.

He’s .02 seconds above Greg’s Olympic Record pace. 

He’s right on his tail. He could make it, make history, right in the middle of a prelims second run. He’s fearless and he’s beautiful and he’s _his_ and he’s flying and he’s right _there_ , and he’s—

Down.

Face down in the snow, dragged across the ice, hurdling down the side of the course on his belly until he slams once into the gates with his ankles and ribs before continuing his deadly slide.

Maxine gasps beside him. Someone in the crowd screams, and hundreds more wail a curse in a collective gasp.

Sherlock fell.

He _fell_.

The words don’t even compute in John’s mind.

John is on his feet so quickly his right leg nearly buckles and throws him off balance. He doesn’t remember even having the thought to stand. Doesn’t remember breathing any curses through his lips. Doesn’t remember the blast of sound behind him as the rest of the crowd leapt up as a group. 

But they have, and John can’t breathe, and he strains and strains and _strains_ to see Sherlock’s body more clearly up on the slope before he tears his gaze away and looks desperately to the screen instead.

He doesn’t remember clasping his hand over his mouth. Gripping the freezing handrail with the other through his glove.

In brilliant HD focus, Sherlock’s limp, free-sliding body finally crashes into the safety gates with an echoing smack for good, tangled in the mess of bright orange plastic and poles. One of his skis is gone, the other bent unnaturally towards his neck. One of his poles has snapped in half, the splintered shard still gripped with an iron clasp in his gloved hand.

He doesn’t move a muscle.

Everything goes silent save the hiss of the wind.

Nobody moves in the crowd at John’s back as the camera zooms in on Sherlock’s unmoving body. John tries and tries and tries to see but he can’t tell if Sherlock’s chest is rising and falling with breaths. If the soft movement of the curls poking out from the top of his helmet are moving because his neck is moving, or just with the call of the lonely breeze.

“Sherlock,” somebody whispers. John looks around shocked for the source of the voice, then realizes it had been him.

Maxine’s hand is suddenly on top of his own on the railing. It’s the only sensation John can feel. Not even the frozen ground beneath his feet.

The nearest paramedics stationed along the edges of the course are sprinting up the slope to reach Sherlock where he lies, one of them carrying a stretcher over their shoulder.

John realizes he couldn’t breathe now even if he wanted to; he cannot expand his lungs. He’s in a helicopter over the desert sand lit up by thick stars, by the fire of the enemy piercing the black skies, and Wing Commander James Sholto is screaming into his headset that he needs to seek cover and land, that he needs to return to his men, that he’s going to be hit, and “ _Dammit Watson, come in! Come in. John, please . . ._ ” 

And he’s falling and falling in a stream of fire and smoke until the earth swallows him whole, ripping bone from bone, setting his skin to flame.

He’s staring up at Orion, begging him to speak his name. To whisper. To blink.

“Look!” someone calls in the crowd.

John tears his eyes away from Sherlock’s body on the screen, swarmed now by the quick, steady hands of paramedics kneeling in the snow, and his jaw drops open when he sees another skier hurtling down the course, not even carrying poles and effortlessly flying around the curves of the snow to where Sherlock lies off to the side.

John would know the clean lines of that skier anywhere. Would know them in his dreams, with his eyes closed, in the middle of a storm.

Would know them lying on his back in the cold sand as he died, remembering the only thing that could make him happy in those moments. Telling a hazy pair of missed brown eyes that he didn’t want this to be the end. That he was scared.

“Is that . . .” Maxine whispers. She frowns. “That couldn’t be Lestrade? But he’s skiing down there with no poles!”

It can be. 

He is.

John is too shocked to wonder at why the hell Greg was even at the top of the course in the first place. He can’t wonder how Greg even got a pair of racing skis, how he’s skiing without poles, how he’s navigating the course faster than half the Olympic competitors without even _trying_. 

How he’s even standing upright while Sherlock lies tangled in ice. How he can breathe.

Greg reaches the crowd of paramedics around Sherlock in mere seconds, turning so hard to brake he creates a surging wall of snow and spray with his skis. John looks back to the screen, as if his eyes themselves can control the zoom of the camera lens, can get closer and closer and closer until he’s inside Sherlock’s half-open mouth, down his throat, in his lungs. Until he can finally tell whether he’s _breathing_ , once and for all.

Because he might not be breathing. He might not be— _goddammit . . ._

Without pausing after he brakes, Greg leans down to unclip his skis, shucks them off, and then sprints in his ski boots through the snow to Sherlock’s side, kneeling in the space the paramedics have automatically made. 

The camera finds a blessed clear spot through the huddle and zooms in.

One of the paramedics has pulled the bandana off Sherlock’s face, then stabilizes his neck with his hands while they wait for a brace to be fitted. Another paramedic slowly removes Sherlock’s helmet, and the crowd gasps when Sherlock’s eyes remain closed, when his head lolls back into the paramedic’s hands, completely limp.

John recognizes the sharp tang of blood in his mouth. He bites his tongue even harder and swallows it down.

No. _Christ_ , no . . .

Greg drops his gloves behind him in the snow, then carefully leans down over Sherlock and holds his face in his bare hands. Greg’s lips are moving. His eyes don’t leave Sherlock’s closed lids, and a gust of wind effortlessly blows a lock of Sherlock’s curls over Greg’s thumb.

John realizes he’s gripping the railing so hard his hand has completely cramped. He sucks down a desperate breath and rapidly blinks, forcing himself to stay there, to stay here, to not fade away.

Because he should be _up there_ , goddammit. Fuck, he should be kneeling there in the snow beside them both, holding Sherlock’s hand, whispering down into his ear. He should be picking Sherlock up out of the snow, holding him to his chest, sprinting like mad to get him into the nearest bloody hospital, out of the bloody wilderness. He should . . . he should _be there_.

And then he remembers, with a sickening wave of nausea, that even if he had a coach’s jacket and an access pass . . . even if he _was_ allowed to be up there, somehow, in some miraculous way, he wouldn’t be able to pick Sherlock up and hold him to his chest. He wouldn’t be able to carry him and sprint with him to safety. He wouldn’t be able to do anything at all. 

Instead he would be flailing, stuck and weak as he tried to force his way through the snow, limping hard on the uneven and steep, slick terrain, until Greg would have to leave Sherlock behind on the ground and run to help John instead. He’d have to help him bloody walk, or carry him on his back, all with the same terrified look in his brown eyes.

John would rather be a pile of bones near his helicopter back in the sand.

God, but Greg’s face, looking down at Sherlock now . . .

John’s lungs burn with the effort to keep breathing as he shakes, helplessly watching Greg stroke Sherlock’s hair back from his face where he lies crumpled in the snow. Greg leans down further, whispering to him with silent lips, and John wants to sink down into the snow at the fact that it’s being broadcasted for the entire grandstands to see. Probably for the entire world. The knowledge that this scene would be replayed all over the Olympics coverage tonight on every news channel. 

He can already see the ticker tape on the screen: _Breaking News: Super-G Gold hopeful Sherlock Holmes dangerously injured in crash during second prelims run. Might be fucking dead. Coach Greg Lestrade strokes the curls back from his face, looks a little too concerned. Biathlete in crowd collapses for unknown reason. Full story at eleven . . ._

He’d been the only person on earth to witness Greg cradling Sherlock’s face in his hands like that. And now he may never even have the chance again. Greg will be the last one to touch his skin. And he’ll be gone . . . fucking _gone_.

But then, bursting through the desperate fog of John’s thoughts, like a ray of sun piercing through the thick, grey clouds, the crowd gasps. 

In brilliant HD focus, Sherlock’s eyes flutter open. 

“Oh God,” John breathes. The edges of his vision go grey and hazy. “God . . .”

John frantically tries to read the words on Greg’s lips as Greg finally pulls his hands off Sherlock’s face and puts them in a less intimate position on his shoulder and chest. John’s knee goes weak as Sherlock eventually reaches up a fragile hand to grip weakly at Greg’s wrist. 

Sherlock’s chest rises with a deep breath, straining the lycra. It falls. Then rises again. Again and again.

The paramedics leap into action, holding up fingers, asking him questions. Greg takes a step back, and the camera leaves him behind as he stands up out of frame. John can practically see him in his mind’s eye—stepping back, straightening his spine, running his hands through his hair as he breathes, looking like he just helped some random skier who tripped instead of quite literally rushing to what he thought might be the dying breaths of the love of his life.

And out of nowhere, John remembers . . . James had told him once, four beers in on leave in a Kandahar bar, that John wore his heart on his sleeve. That he was an open book. That James could always tell what he was thinking with just one glance at his face.

And John suddenly knows, with a shameful intensity, that if he had been in Greg’s place, he would have broken apart. He would have released everything he had wrapped up and kept held back since James finished that sentence years and years ago. He would have collapsed on Sherlock’s chest, let his desperate tears fall into his curls.

He would not have calmly held Sherlock’s shoulder, and whispered to him in a steady voice, and then stood up and moved away so the paramedics could work once he was awake.

“Well, thank the Lord above,” Maxine finally says next to him. The crowd is growing restless, and the droning murmur sounds like an avalanche in John’s ears. 

He looks down at Maxine’s hand still over his, suddenly self-conscious and with a resentment he can’t quite place, and he lamely slips his hand out from under her grip. He clears his throat once, twice.

“Yes,” is all he can say.

He can feel Maxine’s gaze on him. 

“Ahh, poor dear. He’ll be alright. See look at that—he’s on his feet and everything. Doesn’t even need to use the stretcher. The fall must’ve just knocked the wind out of—”

“He’s _what_?”

John sharply looks up from where he’s been hunched over just trying to catch his breath, and decides that, just possibly, he is going to kill Sherlock Holmes. Right after he holds him tightly to his chest, and whispers to him, “ _thank God, thank fucking God_ ,” he’s going to take a deep breath, clench his fists, apologize to Greg, and then kill him.

He’s going to kill the fucker who is currently pushing away the paramedics’ hands, and rising to his own bloody feet instead of using the bloody stretcher. Who is upright and trying to fucking _ski_ as if he doesn’t have a probable concussion. As if every bone in his body isn’t broken in shards. As if he didn’t just crash into a mountainside and a barricade at ninety miles an hour.

John is going to collapse into his arms, never let him go, tell him he loves him more than he loves his own survival, more than the sun, and then John is going to wrap his hands around that pretty neck he thought had been broken, and he’s going to strangle the pale skin. He’s going to kill that gorgeous lunatic for not resisting acting _completely_ insane for just once in his bloody life. He’s going to—

“—sure you’re alright? You look mighty pale, there . . . Should you sit?”

A roar of cheers erupts at John’s back as the rest of the grandstands watch Sherlock rise to his feet on the screen. He gives a brief wave and nod of acknowledgement to the crowd, the other hand on his hip as he looks back down at his feet. The paramedics are still arguing with him to get on the stretcher, to let them double check, and meanwhile Greg is standing back, his eyes never leaving Sherlock’s neck even as he shakes his head. John reads a murmured stream of curses on his lips.

“I . . . I need to see him,” John says, startled that he just said it out loud.

Maxine smiles sympathetically. Sherlock, Greg, and the paramedics disappear up on the screen, on their way to the emergency lift alongside the course which will take them straight down to the Jeongseon medical center at the base. 

Sherlock is bloody walking on his own two fucking feet. The fucker.

On the screen, the next skier is already stepping up to the starting gate, a Swiss flag on his helmet. Course attendants rapidly fix the fallen section of fencing near the fifth gate.

Maxine bites her lip. “I’m sure it’ll be nice to be with your friend when you see him back at the Village,” she says. “You have a visitor’s pass, right? Or if not, maybe you could borrow ours . . .”

“No I—I need to go. I need to see him.” 

John trips on his chair as he starts to move away. He nearly screams when Maxine’s hand on his arm holds him back.

“There now, I don’t think they’ll let you see him now unless you were an athlete. He’ll be in the athlete’s medical facility. But look there, he’s walking just fine to the lift. He’ll be—”

“I _am_ a fucking athlete,” John barks back, then wrenches his arm away. He turns and limps through the crowd on shaking legs, unwilling to process the shocked looks on Maxine and Ron’s faces. Unwilling to care.

He whips out his phone as he walks, drops it into the snow, bends awkwardly to pick it up and nearly drops it again. His hands shake so hard he can barely read the screen.

“ _John Watson,_ ” he says to himself as he pulls up a text to Greg. His heart pounds. “ _Your body is currently maintaining an internal temperature of around thirty-seven degrees . . ._ ”

Sent: _Get me in there._

The reply is so immediate John wonders why and how Greg even had his phone on him. Whether he’s still texting John back from the middle of the course, or whether he’s already down in the Jeongseon medical building with Sherlock.

Received: _On it._

John focuses on calming his breathing as he keeps flashing his athlete’s pass at various course attendants, making his way past barrier after barrier, forcing himself through the crowds towards Sherlock.

He doesn’t even notice that a second text came through until he bursts through the medical center front doors, pulling out his phone to try and argue his way inside. He’ll name drop and pull rank and beg all he has to. He will give up every ounce of dignity. He will become terrifying. He needs to be _there_.

He stops in his tracks.

Received: _You have access. Give your name at the desk. Mild bruising only. He is ok._

And then, ten seconds after:

Received: _Putain, J. Please. Get here. J’ai besoin de toi._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French reminder:  
> J'ai besoin de toi : I need you
> 
> It feels so good to be back in this verse after the holidays! Drop me a line if you feel so inclined - it's the highest of joys to hear from you all after posting a new chapter of this story :) All my thanks for the kind words so far.
> 
> Additionally, I'm well aware it is basically impossible to see *anything* from the bottom of a Super-G run except the last 100 feet or so of the course. These courses are massive, considering that skiers ski at over 75 miles per hour with huge, open turns for about 90 whole seconds before reaching the bottom. Your view of anything higher than the last gate or two would be obscured by trees, the turns of the course, and the mountain itself. However, just . . . . give me a little creative license here :) And thank god for drone cameras and HD screens.
> 
> Also, I know that removing someone's helmet when a head injury is suspected probably isn't the best course of action, but then we wouldn't have that ANGST of Greg's HAND stroking back Sherlock's CURLS. 
> 
> Next time: three skiers, one hospital room, one very heatead conversation.


	10. The Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! 
> 
> Listen to "The Hill" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuV8iPI6uhI)
> 
> Enjoy :)

_11 February 2018, 3:30 pm_

 

There isn’t anything left to say.

The edge of the counter cuts into Greg’s back as he leans against it. His knee is screaming at him, begging for rest and ice after his unplanned dash down the slope, but he’ll be damned if he lets Sherlock see that he’s hurting. He isn’t sure whether that’s because he wouldn’t want Sherlock to actually feel guilty, or because he wouldn’t want Sherlock to think he’s _supposed_ to feel guilty and resent the whole thing—the rescue and the touch of Greg’s hands, the words he whispered to him in the snow. 

_Putain_ , his knee hasn’t hurt like this since the weeks after he first tore it. The thought briefly crosses his mind to take advantage of being in a medical building, but he tamps it down. John is on his way, and for some reason that means he absolutely cannot be seen struggling, holding ice to his swollen leg as if that’s more pressing than Sherlock almost snapping his neck.

Instead, Greg simply waits. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks everywhere but at the heap of lycra-covered limbs sprawled across the exam table. At the dark curls still damp from sweat and snow.

Sherlock’s barely even opened his mouth to breathe since the last, “ _Je vais parfaitement bien!_ ” came spitting out, right before he turned his back on Greg like a two-year-old, then dared him with just a look to take the bait and scold him. To which Greg had wanted to kick the leg of the exam table as hard as he could and tell Sherlock that he wouldn’t be tempted to treat him like a child if Sherlock hadn’t spent the last half hour criticizing every word out of Greg’s mouth, insisting everyone was overreacting about _crashing_ and _lying motionless_ on the ice, and alternatively switching between English and French practically every other word just to fluster Greg on purpose.

“ _Just say you are sorry,_ ” Greg wants to plead with him for the tenth time, because they both know Sherlock was _well_ aware that he was going to take his own stupid angle on that gate, that he had spent all morning nodding along with Greg’s advice even though he was planning to go against it. Even though it almost cost him his life. And for what? For a prelims run he could’ve won with his eyes closed.

“ _Dis pardon,_ ” he wants to say, even as a tiny voice in his mind reminds him that Sherlock shouldn’t have to be sorry for trying to win Gold. That the Greg from ten years ago probably would have done the same thing.

Greg runs a hand through his hair as he takes a deep breath, and the clock on the white wall ticks in the thick silence. Sherlock picks incessantly at a hangnail, as if _that’s_ more inconvenient and offensive to him than the deep purple bruising already forming across his hip and shoulder. The cut across his cheek has started to leak deep red blood into the bandage. Greg can’t look at it.

A quick knock on the door is followed by a head timidly popping inside; Greg recognizes the poor nurse from earlier who’d practically run from the room once the head doctor on staff had given Sherlock his initial once-over. Her eyes had blown wide as Sherlock nearly threw the doctor from the room with a snarl, and then the argument that had been brewing between Greg and Sherlock since Sherlock first opened his eyes in the snow had finally exploded. 

Greg imagines that the entire medical center was probably filled then with booms of echoing, angry French for who knows how long. He wonders how many social media sites are currently plastered with the rumors that Super-Greg was heard yelling at his skier mere minutes after his skier fell on an innocent gate. The thought makes him feel stripped naked, his skin flushed.

“ _Pardon_ ,” the nurse says in a voice that sounds like glass. Her eyes glance quickly to Sherlock before she winces, then looks back at Greg. “ _Il y a . . . hum, un homme est là pour—_ ”

Greg takes pity on her while Sherlock continues to wage war on his offending hangnail. “English is fine,” he tells her, in what he hopes is a calm voice. He realizes it’s the first thing he’s said in nearly twenty minutes of total silence.

Relief floods her face. “Ah, thank you. There is a man here—a John Watson. He is on the approved visitors list. Would you like us to let him in?”

She asks the question to Greg even though Sherlock is obviously the consent-giving patient. He suspects Sherlock is adding that to his mental list of the unforgivable, unbearable indignities Sherlock has had to suffer under the guise of Greg’s ‘so-called coaching’—as if Sherlock is the one who’s spent the last four years saying that this arrangement needed to change, and not Greg.

Sherlock shouted something about being micromanaged only an hour ago, right before calling Greg _stupide et naïf_ for thinking Sherlock could ever beat his time without taking that angle, as if Sherlock’s entire life mission revolved around knocking Greg Lestrade from the top of a list. 

“ _How do you expect me to make a new name for myself if you won’t let me do anything?_ ” Sherlock had said to him, his face in pinched agony and his cheeks pale. “ _It’s like you want me to remain in your shadow—the druggie kid who trails along behind Super-Greg, like you don’t even want me to—_ ”

“Monsieur Lestrade?” the nurse prompts.

Greg blinks, sees that Sherlock is still ignoring the rest of the world, then nods. “Of course. Let him in.”

Sherlock doesn’t even look up at the prospect of John visiting. Greg bites down another hissing stream of curses. He’s already said all he could possibly say, and Sherlock wouldn’t listen to anything else anyway. He wonders if Sherlock is aware that Greg remembers every single syllable Sherlock uttered. That he cannot just delete their argument like Sherlock undoubtedly has.

Sherlock sighs and picks at a torn bit of lycra across his thigh. Greg closes his eyes and does _not_ think about how pale Sherlock’s eyelids had looked in the snow, how the little blue veins had looked like death sprawled across his skin, how the paramedics had pretended to ignore him as Greg held his face in his hands and told him that he needed him to come back, that he needed him to be okay, that he _loved_ —

The door opens again. Greg’s ribs loosen for the first time since he witnessed Sherlock’s head make contact with the snow.

He takes a step forward and reaches out with relief. “John, _mon dieu_ —”

But John doesn’t even look at him. Rather, he takes two steps inside, quietly shuts the door, and then pins Sherlock with his gaze, waiting for him to look up. John softly clears his throat in the silence, filling the room.

Greg bites his tongue so he won’t scream at Sherlock, “ _Regarde le putain!_ ” John’s hair looks like he’s run his hands through it for hours. His face is too pale.

Greg shifts in the silence, and his knee twangs. He keeps a straight face.

When Sherlock eventually does look up, Greg watches his eyes quickly scan John’s body. Something softens in his gaze, then. His mouth sags with guilt. Sherlock licks his lips and opens his mouth to speak, but John holds up a hand, his spine terrifyingly straight.

“No, don’t open your mouth. Don’t say a bloody word.”

It’s a command. Sherlock’s jaw slams shut, and only then does John rush forward on two unsteady steps, release the air in his lungs, and crush Sherlock into his arms. He presses his cheek into Sherlock’s curls and closes his eyes, and Sherlock slowly unfolds his body and wraps his hands around John’s back, pulling them flush.

John’s shoulders are shaking. He grips the back of Sherlock’s neck with his palm. Greg presses his hip into the counter until it stings and tries to focus on the fact that everyone is _alive_ , not on the fact that he doesn’t think John has ever hugged _him_ that way. Not even close.

The embrace lasts for what feels like hours. Greg fights with himself to look away, to give them privacy, as if he hasn’t seen the two of them naked and panting, flushed and sweaty and laid bare for each other in bed.

John grips Sherlock harder, breathing close against his scalp. Sherlock’s fingers tighten in the back of John’s favorite green coat.

“Honestly, John,” Greg hears in a muffled voice pressed into John’s chest. “I’m fine, it was only a—”

“Shut it. Don’t ruin it.” John inhales and kisses the top of Sherlock’s head. “Just let me . . . let me have this first.”

The clock echoes through the room. Greg holds his breath so he doesn’t have to hear his own breathing, harsh and raspy all by itself in the empty corner.

When John finally does pull back, Sherlock looks incredibly small. Greg wonders how all his bones didn’t just snap into pieces on the mountain, littering the snow. John holds Sherlock’s face in his palms and looks into his eyes for a moment, his jaw shut tight, then he steps away and flutters his fingers into fists, taking a breath before he shucks off his coat and gently lays it on the counter.

The energy in the room shifts.

The argument is about to start all over again, Greg knows. He has a sudden, desperate need for John to hold him, too, before it all starts. For John to tell him to be quiet, to let him have this. For John to hold his face.

He takes a step forward, feeling a bit foolish, and he watches as John seems to suddenly remember that Greg is even in the room.

“Christ, come here,” John breathes. He raises his hands and steps towards Greg, and Greg can already feel his spine curving to fit into John’s body, his neck dipping to rest on John’s shoulder . . . But John only touches his chest briefly, then kisses him once on the mouth.

Greg sways a bit when John steps back, fully expecting an embrace. He knows that Sherlock sees this, and so he resolutely does not make it any worse by trying to cover it over with a ridiculous cough. 

He leans back against the counter, arms back over his chest, and tries not to feel like a stranger—just a nurse who happened to pass by and got stuck in the room.

John stands absolutely straight. He raises an eyebrow. “Well? You’re alright?”

Sherlock nods, an odd blush spreading over his cheeks. “Just knocked the wind out of me. Some bruising. I didn’t expect to fall—”

“Yes. Clearly,” John cuts him off.

A dangerous spark flashes across Sherlock’s face, and his jaw tightens. He sits up on the bed and fixes his curls, looking back and forth between John and Greg, but when John only stands tall and resolute, and Greg doesn’t add anything to the conversation, Sherlock frowns.

“That’s it?” he huffs, as if he’s personally offended by the lack of yelling. “The two of you don’t have some master plan to enact which you’ve worked out in advance? No secret speeches already prepared for a moment such as this?”

“For what—for a fall? Like a normal human being?” John laughs. It sounds aggressive and raw.

Greg doesn’t think John notices Sherlock’s small flinch. “ _Non,_ for when he—” Greg starts to say, then cuts himself off.

John stares at him. “For when he . . . ?”

Greg sighs, looking pointedly away from Sherlock’s glare. He tries to keep his voice calm, matter of fact. “For when he goes against what I have told him is dangerous. I have told him that the fifth gate needs an easy angle to make it. A wide curve. He went for sharp.”

John calmly nods. “Right, what you mentioned at dinner.”

Greg’s brows raise, surprised, and Sherlock shoots him one of his most devastating sneers.

“ _Yes,_ Greg, remember? John isn’t completely incompetent at French. It’s not like our own secret language.”

Greg bristles. “ _Vraiment?_ That is what you want to get up in arms about right now?”

Sherlock scoffs and hunches his shoulders. “Well there’s nothing else to do while I sit here waiting for whatever John _really_ wants to say. He clearly understands the reason for the fall—a minutely miscalculated angle which will now never happen again, since I now know how to make the sharp turn exactly the way I need to. And you’ve already told me all about how dangerous and reckless and thoughtless I’ve been in every combination of words known to man, and John still looks tense, so clearly he has something else to—”

Anger blinds him.

“Do not try to shame me for what I have told you,” Greg cuts in, pushing off from the counter even though it makes his knee explode. He points at Sherlock’s chest. “You cannot . . . you heard what I have told you when you were lying there. You _heard_ what I said. Do not pretend to me that I am just some heartless coach now that we have argued over strategy. I should not have said those things, but I was . . . I was scared. _Désolé_. But do not pretend to me that you aren’t . . . that you mean _nothing_. That this is all just about _times_.”

John and Sherlock stare at him in the sudden silence, and Greg tries not to cower, feeling hot and tingling across his skin. But the victory he expects to feel at finally getting a word in quickly turns to guilt when a flash of shock passes over Sherlock’s face. Sherlock ducks his head and licks his lips.

“I heard what you said to me,” Sherlock whispers down at his feet. “In the snow. _Je t’ai entendu_.”

“ _Je le sais_ ,” Greg sighs. He hates himself for glancing quickly to John, wondering whether he just understood. John blinks back wet eyes and nods.

Then Greg sees it: Sherlock was right. The tension is still there, pulsing in John’s fists, the twist of his lips . . .

“Sherlock,” John says, staring at the farthest wall, and in a terrifyingly quiet voice. “Tell me this. Just . . . tell me this. Why, on God’s evergreen fucking earth, did you stand up? Why did you walk?”

Sherlock’s eyes bulge. “Seriously? That’s why you’re upset with me?”

“Oh what, you couldn’t bloody deduce it?”

“You’ve only been in here for two minutes, and I hit my head rather hard about an hour ago, so excuse me if my emotion-detecting skills are a little slower than you’re clearly used to—”

“Oh, don’t turn this into your pity party,” John cuts in. He grips a handful of his own hair. “You . . . Christ, Sherlock, you have no idea . . . no _idea_ what it felt like to watch you from down there. To just . . . have to stand there. And then to see you bloody pushing away the paramedics? ‘Oh, look at me, I’m Sherlock Holmes, I know what I’m doing, I can stand on my own two feet and don’t need the bloody stretcher, thank you very much.’ I mean, Christ, they were trying to _help_ —”

“Let me get this straight,” Sherlock says, fingers pressed to his mouth. He closes his eyes. “You, John Watson, are _mad_ that I’m perfectly alright? You’d rather I be incapacitated on a stretcher with a brace on my neck than sitting here talking like normal?”

“Your spine could have been broken!” John roars. “You were cold, and in shock, and you—”

“I was not in _shock_. I was coherent, and I saw what was about to be a complete waste of everyone’s time dealing with unnecessary braces and stretchers, and I knew I was fi—”

“Shut up,” John hisses. “Just, shut up. You—yes, even fucking you—could not have known that you were fine. I’ve seen . . . Sherlock I have seen people fall over and die. One hit to the wrong place on your fucking back, and you try to move, and that’s it. That’s fucking it. You’re done for. Christ, how could you think it was alright to—”

“I did not _think_. I _knew_. I took stock of every fact, every detail available to me, instead of lying there whimpering like, as you would say, ‘ _a normal person_.’ And so I knew.”

John groans as he passes a hand over his mouth. “God, can’t you just bloody tone it down for one day? Are you physically incapable of stopping trying to be so . . . so . . . for five minutes?”

“Be so _what_?”

John nearly laughs. “Jesus, look at you! You just . . . I thought your neck was fucking broken. Do you understand that? I thought you were . . . you were _gone_. And now you’re sitting here asking me if I’m mad that that wasn’t the case? Fuck you. Let me be worried. Let _us_ be worried about you. And don’t go trying to make it worse by potentially inflicting even more damage by fucking standing up—”

“But I knew I was _fine_ ,” Sherlock finally cuts in, rising to his feet.

“Well, I didn’t! And while we’re at it, you didn’t either!”

“ _And neither did Greg_ ,” Greg’s brain suddenly fills in for him, and he burns with shame at the sudden realization that John has not just been talking to Sherlock this whole time. That part of his tirade, at least, has been secretly directed at Greg. The man who stood there and let Sherlock Holmes stand up with a possible spine injury. God, he was _stupid_ , incompetent . . .

“What, so all of my actions need to be based around how you could possibly perceive them?” Sherlock says to John, as if Greg isn’t even in the room. His eyes blaze. “When you’re at the bottom of a bloody mountain literally hundreds of meters away? When I am in the middle of my own Olympic run?”

John suddenly shoots Greg a quick, piercing look of hurt, as if he can’t believe that Greg hasn’t stepped in like he normally does by this point. Greg can’t quite believe it either. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and guilt plugs up his throat.

John snarls through his nose as he looks back at Sherlock. “Honestly? You want my honest answer to that?” he asks.

Sherlock looks vaguely embarrassed, a blush spreading up his neck, but he doesn’t back down. “Obviously, or I wouldn’t have asked.”

“When it has to do with whether or not you just fucking died in front of my very eyes, then _yes_. I want you to take five fucking seconds and think of how I may be perceiving things. ‘Body’s just transport’ my arse. And you made Greg watch it, too. He had to . . . he _raced_ to you. He thought you were—”

“Believe me, Greg here has already shared every emotion he could possibly have on the matter while you were still clamoring your way in here. Took you a bit of time to get here, didn’t it? Since it appears you thought yourself too worthy to sit in the ADA seating up front, no? You could’ve gotten here much faster if you hadn’t been stuck trying not to trip on fifty bleachers.”

“Oh _fuck_ you, I _was_ down there in the bloody special seating. You’d’ve known that if you did your _normal run_ and got to the bottom. I was right there. A fucking picture perfect view of you snapping your neck in half. A front row seat!”

“You’ve already so elegantly pointed out that my neck was _not_ snapped in half. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’m your adult _partner_ and not your bloody five year old child.”

“Sherlock . . .” Greg finally hears himself say, but neither one of them seems to hear him.

John’s hands are clenched so tightly his knuckles are shining white. “That’s right. I am your partner. You are my partner. And I am standing here wondering why you thought it was fucking alright to wave off medical attention after falling onto your face at ninety-miles an h—”

“Because I was fine!” Sherlock groans. He grips fingers through his curls. “Christ, John, nail me to the cross for focusing on the bloody Olympics for five seconds instead of focusing only on you. I am trying to win, and I was fine, and I wanted to get back into the race, and so I stood up. Sorry those actions weren’t hiding some deeper, more nefarious motive, but there you have it. Greg didn’t even yell at me for that, and he was standing right there. You think he couldn’t have made me get on the stretcher if he really wanted to? You think I just roll over him in everything? I can _listen_.”

“On the contrary, I believe Greg fully understands right now that he should have forced you on that fucking stretcher, but he was probably a bit distracted from just trying to save your life, so possibly, I can cut him the tiniest bit of slack.”

Sherlock levels Greg with an offended sneer. “Well, I don’t see you going all Captain Watson on him, if you think he should have acted differently.”

“I don’t need to,” John says, quietly. “Because he _listens_.”

Greg looks around and wonders when the fuck everything got like this. How the three of them went from holding each other in his Village bed, safe and content, to this: screaming in a random medical center over something that, when Greg thought about it, wasn’t really anybody’s fault at all. Wasn’t John’s, or his own, or even Sherlock’s. 

And yet, he can’t bring himself to say that. Not now, not quite yet. Because he still sees Sherlock hitting the ice in his mind. Still has the memory of Sherlock nodding to him right before that second run, saying, “ _Oui Lestrade, don’t worry, it’s only the prelims._ ” Still remembers the terrifying, heart-stopping terror that induced him to grab the nearest pair of skis, fling them on his feet, and then hurl himself down the mountain thinking only _Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock_ . . .

Sherlock doesn’t say anything back.

John stares at Sherlock for another long moment before he turns away from him, hands on his hips as he looks down at the sparkling linoleum floor. Greg notices he’s limping a bit from the cold and holds himself back from offering John the chair in the corner. John would only notice that Greg himself is limping, and force him to take it instead.

John sighs up at the ceiling. Greg waits for the waterfall to burst once more, for them all to drown, for the yelling to start up again booming through the medical center corridors, letting the entire mountain know that a relationship is tearing itself apart at the seams in one of the innocent-looking white rooms. Tearing itself apart over nothing.

But instead, John just looks back down again and rubs wearily at his eyes. His shoulders sink, and Greg shoves his hands under his own arms so he won’t go over and rub at John’s back, holding him up from behind.

“You know, I came in here ready to be furious at you,” John says at his feet. 

Greg can’t remember the last time he heard John sound this defeated. He shoots Sherlock a quick glance, which Sherlock immediately returns, his eyes full of concern.

John huffs a weak laugh, his back to them both. “Came here ready to . . . Fuck, kiss the living shit out of you, then grab you and demand to know why you just put me through that. Why you couldn’t just . . . _listen_ for once in your fucking life.” He laughs weakly and raises a hand. “As if . . . as if you falling is somehow your fault. Like you aren’t allowed to try to . . . like you have to be perfect. Like you did it to hurt me.” He shakes his head in his hand. “God, all for a prelims run . . . I was ready to be fucking furious.”

“You already _have_ been furious with me . . .” Sherlock murmurs under his breath, so quietly Greg wonders whether John could even hear. 

Greg levels Sherlock with a warning glare, but Sherlock’s eyes are exhausted, his hand rubbing his neck. He looks ready to fall over, and Greg quietly walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“ _Assieds-toi_ ,” he whispers. To his mild surprise, Sherlock silently obeys. Greg keeps his hand on his shoulder, his warmth bleeding through the lycra to Sherlock’s clammy skin. He’s trembling a bit, and his eyes don’t leave John’s back.

“Of course I’m not mad that you’re alright,” John finally goes on, in a thin voice. “Of course, more than anything, I’m not mad . . .” He stops as his voice chokes up, shaking his head.

Greg tries desperately to think of something to say, trying to remember what he said to John the last time he saw him looking anywhere close to this distraught, but his brain can’t remember anything except Sherlock’s blue lips in the snow. His closed eyes.

Sherlock leans into Greg’s side, almost imperceptibly, and Greg slowly brings his arm across Sherlock’s shoulders.

“Does any of this have to do with who you were talking to on the phone?” Sherlock asks in the silence.

Greg pinches his nose. _Merde_ , everything was finally settling down, returning to normal, and now Sherlock has to go and open his _grande gueule_ and—

But, to his shock, John weakly laughs and turns to face them. His jaw isn’t clenched.

“How did you know I was on the phone?” he simply asks. He leans back against the counter where Greg had been standing.

“I’m wounded that you think I wouldn’t have at least eight ways of knowing you’d spoken to someone on the phone who wasn’t Greg or myself, but this time it happened to be that I literally saw it happening with my own eyes.”

Greg frowns. “But you were up there with me between the runs . . .? Ah, _non. J’ai oublié._ You disappeared during the break for those ten minutes.”

John’s face clears. “You were the athlete walking near the bathrooms before the second rounds started. The crowd of people following you.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Honestly, John, a walking bear dressed in a business suit could have walked by you and you wouldn’t even have noticed. I waved at you and everything, but you were—”

“You were coming to say hello?” John asks, his face slack and unreadable. “To me?”

“Obviously, why in the world else would I willingly brave the swarming masses when they’re all trying to purchase hot cocoa and use the loo. I’d have to be a lunatic otherwise.”

Greg sighs and rubs his brow. “You could have just _told_ me that that is what you wanted to do. I would have gone with you. But no, you just disappeared and I was—”

“Well you were the one who insisted on staying with me up at the top even though I have expressly asked you more than four hundred bloody times to _stay at the bottom_. But ‘oh no, it’s the Olympics, you can’t possibly be alone for—’”

“Oh, _c’est ma faute_ that I wanted to experience it with you?” Greg pulls away from Sherlock, fresh anger prickling under his skin. “It is my fault that I wanted to be back up there at the top with everyone else, not just waiting down at the bottom all alone, without any of the—”

“You _know_ I need the space. You know that it distracts—”

“So I am not allowed anywhere near you? I have to stay exactly where you have left me and be happy with that?”

“Good God, you know that’s not what I mean. But going to find John at least gave me two minutes of precious silence without having to stand there and watch the entire world bow down at your feet.”

“ _Putain_ , not that again. You know you only ever say that when you are—”

“Or you trying to talk strategy with me as if we haven’t already gone over it two-thousand times.”

“And yet you still have not followed that strategy, I _told_ you—”

“To steal your own phrase from five seconds ago: not this again.”

“ _Oui_ , this again,” Greg says, even though going over it again is the absolute last thing he wants to do. The fear still left in his gut makes him feel sick, and the words pour from his mouth without any meaning. “Do you think that I have skied for so many years without knowing what I am doing?”

“Apologies, Greg, I forgot you were God.”

“ _Ne fais pas ça s’il te plaît . . ._ ”

“Me don’t do this? Look at your face. You clearly don’t even believe in your argument anymore. You’re just saying this because you’re the coach and you’re supposed to.”

“ _Mon dieu,_ what happened. Why are we—”

“And furthermore, going back to the original point, _you_ could have been texting John the whole time if you were lonely. If you didn’t want to stand at the bottom all by yourself. But _no_ , Super-Greg needs to have his phone off and away at all tim—”

“It was my Wing Commander,” John suddenly says.

Greg swallows the words that had been brimming up in his throat and turns to John for the first time in what feels like hours. Sherlock freezes, his hands mid-air, as if he’s afraid John won’t say anything more if he moves. Greg can’t really blame him.

John looks between the two of them, something like sadness on his face. It suddenly reminds Greg of the look on John’s face back when he truly realized Greg and Sherlock were together for the first time, not just skier and coach. Greg remembers it all too clearly, etched forever into his mind: how the lines of John’s thin mouth had looked like an apology, as if he was saying sorry for even existing with his own life and past outside Greg and Sherlock’s world. How he’d quickly covered it up by saying how that was great, how that was wonderful, how he couldn’t believe he didn’t realize it before. 

John licks his lips now and holds his chin un-self-consciously high. “James Sholto. He was the one who called me. Why I didn’t see you when you tried to find me.”

A flash of recognition, some deeper understanding, passes over Sherlock’s face when Greg briefly looks down. 

Greg _hates_ it; he himself has absolutely no idea who James Sholto is. Has never even heard John say the name. It makes him feel like an aging, out of touch loner trying to figure out the who’s who, lost and in over his head as the world around him continues to surge forward, completely unphased.

Sherlock breaks the silence first. “He knew you were here? Competing? I didn’t know the two of you still . . .”

“We don’t,” John says, as if he’s guilty about it. Greg tamps down the sudden burst of brightness in his chest that at least Sherlock was taken by surprise by _something_.

John shrugs, and the white room suddenly feels very hot and small. “He, er . . . he saw the piece. My piece. On the telly. Gave me up a call and we, well. He just wished me luck.” John turns to Greg. “He was the one who lead the search. I’d served under him for over ten years.”

As if that somehow explains the whole story.

Greg doesn’t know what to say. He feels like he’s twenty-one again, tongue tied and nervous and exposed under John Watson’s deep blue gaze. He feels like he’s never kissed John Watson before, like he’s never held him naked, or listened to his stories over glasses of whiskey, or taken him into his arms. 

No, now he’s suddenly looking at a stranger. A soldier. A pilot dropped into the middle of the silly, unimportant Winter Olympics who almost died out on the battlefield, who had to be searched for, who understands what it means to get ready to die.

Sherlock’s leg shifts so that it barely presses against his. Greg swallows hard. “I . . . I have not watched it,” he says, for some absolutely stupid, unnecessary reason. As if _that_ is the most important thing to talk about after he’s just learned that John had a Wing Commander for over ten years, a man who literally saved his life, and a man whom John has never once mentioned to him.

Greg glances at Sherlock to confirm. “Neither of us have watched it. We didn’t know if . . .”

“I know you haven’t,” John says, a small smile on his lips. “And I know that you know that I’m about to tell you that you can. I don’t care.”

“I care,” Sherlock says, in a tone of voice that makes Greg realize that Sherlock is definitely not just talking about a quick BBC television spotlight. That he’s talking about the last human voice John must have heard right before falling out of the sky.

Greg opens his mouth to agree, but John pushes off from leaning against the farthest wall and comes to stand with them, the three of them in a familiar huddle. Their sides brush together, sharing wisps of warmth. 

It brings sudden water to Greg’s eyes. Before he can blink it away, though, Sherlock sees, and he leans fully into Greg’s stomach and chest from where he still sits on the cot.

John reaches out a hand to card through Sherlock’s sweat-matted hair. He’s silent for a long moment, feeling the curls in his fingers, and Greg tries to banish the image of Sherlock lying motionless in the snow from his mind because he is here, now, warm and moving against his chest.

“When I was . . .” John starts. He pauses and takes a few slow, silent breaths before going on, staring down at Sherlock’s knees. “When I was watching you, up on the screen. All I could think about was that I wanted to be up there. I would have given anything to be up there. Touching you. And you.” He sighs through his nose, and it makes Greg’s chest swell. He finds it foolish that he is still sometimes shocked by John’s bravery, and yet here he is: shocked anew.

John looks at them both. “I just . . . this whole thing. This . . .” he nods his head once around the room, as if that encapsulates the last few weeks. “I feel like I don’t even give a shit about my own . . . my own race. I just wanted to _be_ there. It was the most important thing.”

Greg hears Sherlock swallow. “He told me that you love me,” Sherlock says, and Greg burns in a confusing shame; he hadn’t meant to ever admit that to John, and why not, he can’t quite say. 

But Sherlock goes on, sitting tall even as he leans into Greg’s side. “He was telling me not to try to move, and that he was there, and that you loved me.” He swallows again. “You _were_ up there.”

John nods and sniffs, then quickly wipes at his eyes. “Fuck,” he breathes. 

Greg reaches out for his cheek, lost for words, still hearing the echoing smack of Sherlock’s skis against the orange fencing on an endless loop in his mind. “J . . .” he whispers. 

John looks up at him, his eyes unbelievably blue. He leans forward, licks his lips, let’s Greg cup his jaw, and—

“Mr. Holmes, it looks like it’s been determined that—oh. Apologies.”

The three of them spring apart just as a new doctor barges in the room without even a knock, looking up from his clipboard with hastily suppressed shock. Greg notices his eyes briefly land on John’s hand, which had been resting in Sherlock’s curls, but then the doctor zeroes in on Sherlock and clears his throat.

They all wait in silence. It isn’t until the doctor clears his throat again, looking between Greg and John, that Greg realizes he’s waiting for them to leave for patient privacy. But just as he tries to catch John’s eye, Sherlock sighs.

“Obviously I would prefer that they stay to hear whatever it is you’re about to say, in light of whatever notions you’ve concocted since you walked in without giving a knock.”

John’s jaw clenches in what Greg thinks is irritation, but then realizes is a choked-back laugh. The doctor raps his fingers on his clipboard. “Very well, why don’t we—”

“And I trust the legal requirements of patient confidentiality to keep your concocted notions within these four walls,” Sherlock adds.

The air in the room prickles. Greg finds he can’t look at anything but a smudge on the far wall, and his body feels cold where Sherlock had been leaning against him minutes ago.

The doctor takes an agonizingly long time to answer, staring somewhat blankly at Sherlock Holmes staring him down, flanked by his coach and what appears to be, for all purposes, a completely random man.

Then he nods down at his clipboard. “Of course I—of course.”

John seems to relax for the first time since he entered the room. He places his palm down on the exam table, not touching Sherlock, but close enough. 

Out of nowhere, Greg has the sudden, intense desire to know if John ever had a relationship with this Wing Commander that required confidentiality and concocted notions and secrets kept within walls. He has absolutely no reason to think it would be anything else, it was just a phone call, just a good luck, but the look on Sherlock’s face when he heard . . .

“—should go down in about forty-eight hours, with proper care. No internal damage has been found, but that doesn’t mean you should forego some physical therapy over the next two days, just to check your alignment and strength. Now, as for the race, you’ll know it’s been postponed—”

“It _what_?”

Greg wants to wrap his hands around the neck of this doctor and kill him. 

He’d known the race was postponed—had received an email about it about thirty seconds after they got Sherlock into the medical center doors. The weather had picked up enough after Sherlock’s fall that the skiers from number twelve onwards will have to complete their second preliminary run two days from now, when the course will be free again after the Downhill prelim. And _that_ means that the Final for Super-G will be moved to—

“Until _after_ the Paralympics? Have they utterly lost all sense and reason?”

The doctor shakes his head, unphased by the snarl in Sherlock’s voice, and Greg realizes he’s probably seen much worse. “You seem to be an intelligent man, and therefore I won’t explain to you the logistics of why this is the only possible solution. I understand that waiting is psychologically difficult, but physically, after a fall like this, the delay is only helping you.”

“But they can’t just . . . it wouldn’t _be_ like this if they’d kept everything the way it—”

“I’ll say it again,” the doctor cuts in, holding up a hand as he gathers his things. “I shouldn’t have to explain it to you, Mr. Holmes. It is Mother Nature, nothing more.”

And with that, he gives both Greg and John a tight, courteous nod before striding from the room.

The door slams, and Sherlock silently clutches handfuls of lycra in his fingers. Greg’s stomach sinks. He can tell from the tense line of John’s shoulders that the both of them are only waiting for a rehash of the Paralympics argument—about how “John’s Olympics” has now ruined Sherlock’s chances for Gold by interrupting his training schedule, built around peaking _tomorrow_ and not in over a week. 

Under ordinary circumstances, Greg would step in now and put a stop to it before it even starts, but Sherlock’s words from their argument before echo through his head in a sickening loop, and he keeps his mouth shut. If Sherlock wants to say something, let him be responsible for saying it. Greg’s not in charge of his mouth.

John apparently is not experiencing the same thoughts. He runs a hand over his face and sighs. “Sherlock,” he says in an exhausted voice. “I know it’s not—”

But Sherlock whips out his phone, not even listening, and pulls up his calendar, already starting to type. “Obviously this completely alters the training schedule, since I’ll need to build up and re-peak in ten day’s time, in addition to whatever physical therapy you’re undoubtedly going to make me go through over the next two days to make up for this. We’ll start with tomorrow, cardio and practice drop-ins—”

Greg looks up at John once, watching the tension slowly dissolve from his face. John gives him a quick nod and steps back, and Greg lets himself be pulled into the conversation of completely re-designing Sherlock’s training in only ten minutes. They block in trainings on their phones, leaving spaces for the press they’ve already agreed to do, times to eat, times for alignment and massage, and it isn’t until Greg comes up for air who knows how long later that he looks down at his phone calendar, now covered in colored blocks, and realizes that there’s hardly any extra time to see John outside of physically showing up to watch his prelims and final.

Sherlock pauses, and sees this too, because he sucks in a quick breath, reaches out his hand for John’s arm, starts to open his mouth . . .

But John stops him with a small smile, a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about me,” he says, his voice oddly casual. “You need time to do this. And I’ll be doing my own training build-up over the next few days anyway. Probably should have already started, but . . .” he gives a small shrug, as if to say ‘silly me, oh well, I’ll just try my best.’

Greg grips his phone. “We can . . . for meals, yes? We can still meet up—”

“Yeah. Yeah, dinners, yeah. Of course.”

Sherlock frowns. “I thought we decided . . . should we eat somewhere else, outside the dining hall, or—?”

“We’ll just overlap for a bit like we’ve been doing,” John says, already moving to pick up his coat from the counter. “You . . . this is more important,” he gestures to their phones. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

John smiles, but his face looks resigned and tired. Greg realizes John’s face looks the same way it had back in his Village room, when they’d been changing as Sherlock took his shower, right before John had turned and told him that he still got secret panic attacks Greg never even knew about, completely out of the blue.

Greg steps forward, swallowing his grunt at the blast of pain through his knee, and touches John’s cheek again. He suddenly feels that what he is about to say will be immensely important, more important than the fact that they’re all standing at the Olympics, discussing how to win.

“J,” he whispers, uncomfortably aware of the volume of his own voice. “I . . . I could not have gone to him, could not have been with him up there, without you.” He swallows thickly. “Without thinking of you there.”

John’s eyes grow watery, and Greg wants to pull him into his arms. He wants to kiss him, deeply, to lose himself in the warmth of John’s skin, for that to banish the memory of sinking to his knees in the snow by Sherlock’s side.

But John quickly blinks it away, pulls Greg down for a small kiss, then walks over to Sherlock, doing the same. “I should go shoot for the rest of the afternoon,” is all John says, as if Greg hadn’t just choked back actual tears for the first time all day.

Sherlock frowns, but doesn’t move to stop him. “Alright.”

“I’ll . . . maybe I’ll text you. About dinner.”

Greg stands frozen. “Okay.”

John looks once between them both, opens his mouth to say something, but doesn’t, and then that wash of resignation settles over his features as he smiles once before stepping into the hall and closing the door. 

The room is too silent after he leaves. Sherlock is staring at the door with a small look of shock, his mouth half-open and still. He looks up as Greg moves closer to him, and Greg can’t hide his wince at the pain.

Sherlock’s face falls as Greg sits down beside him, letting himself be pulled into Greg’s chest. “You’re in pain,” he whispers, hugging Greg back. “You were in pain . . . you didn’t say, I didn’t think—”

Greg shushes him as he runs his palm up Sherlock’s back, letting him fully relax. “ _Ne t’inquiète pas pour moi,_ ” he says back. “So were you. And there were more important things.”

Sherlock’s body trembles. “John . . . He looks . . . I’ve never seen him look like that.”

Greg kisses his hair. “I know, love.”

“His . . . his face. When he left.”

“ _Je le sais. Crois moi, je le sais._ ”

Sherlock sighs, and Greg thinks that maybe they’ll just sit there together until the end of time. Maybe the Finals will disappear, be cancelled forever. Maybe the cameras and the course times and the news outlets will all just . . . vanish. 

Greg suspects Sherlock might have actually fallen asleep in his arms when Sherlock finally whispers, in a small voice, “ _Merci. Et désolé_.”

And when the door opens again immediately after, and the nurse from before walks in to complete the paperwork and discharge them, Sherlock doesn’t even flinch in Greg’s arms, and Greg doesn’t push him away. 

She looks at them, her hand stilled on the stack of paperwork, her eyes unblinking.

Greg’s heart hammers, but Sherlock pulls him infinitesimally closer as she finally looks away. Greg closes his eyes, forgets the rest of the world, and kisses his curls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French:  
> je vais parfaitement bien : I am perfectly fine  
> dis pardon : say sorry  
> pardon : excuse me  
> Il y a . . . hum, un homme est là pour : There is . . . uh, a man is here to --"  
> stupide et naïf : stupid and naïve  
> regarde le putain : look up dammit  
> je t’ai entendu : I heard you  
> je le sais : I know you did  
> assieds-toi : sit down  
> grande gueule : big mouth  
> j’ai oublié : I forgot  
> c’est ma faute : it's my fault  
> ne fais pas ça s’il te plaît : please, don't do this  
> ne t’inquiète pas pour moi : don't worry about me  
> je le sais. Crois moi je le sais. : I know. Believe me, I know.  
>  
> 
> Over the last month or so, a few of you took time out of your own lives to come back here, even though you'd already commented, and leave *another* note telling me that you enjoyed re-reading this story, or thinking about it in between updates, or just to wish me well with the writing. I can't put into words how much that meant to me - how much all of your enthusiasm for this story means to me. Thank you thank you <3
> 
> Up next: Hectic Olympic schedules have left little time for anything else as our beloved trio prepares for 2 Olympic Finals. John feels lonely. Sherlock Holmes decides to take this into his own hands . . . with a kidnapping.


	11. Luna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!
> 
> If you follow me on twitter, or are reading my other current WIP, you'll know that my thoughts have been 99.99% about Harry Potter for months now. So, obviously, in honor of Luna making her grand appearance in my other WIP last week, this chapter simply had to be called Luna. It was the definition of a can't-miss-opportunity.
> 
> Listen to "Luna" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ7jCdqRK00)

_16 February 2018, 11:55pm_

 

It has been five days, four hours, and thirty-nine minutes since Sherlock Holmes has seen John Watson.

Well, that’s not entirely true, if one was being literal about it. He’s _seen_ him, as in, he has laid eyes on his face and heard his voice. But none of the examples floating through Sherlock’s mind have lasted for longer than five minutes, or contained more than brief words and a nod from metres away.

Which is wholly, unutterably, and laughably unacceptable.

Sherlock cracks his toes the way he knows Greg hates and sighs for the countless pathetic time that evening. He should be doing something much more dignified, he knows. He should be eating a balanced, athlete-worthy meal while falling in love with his own muscles, or whispering sweet sonnets to his skis while he cradles them to his bare chest in his bed, or watching course footage until his eyeballs fall out and roll across the floor, or . . . stretching. Something terribly _Olympic_ like any of those options.

And instead, Sherlock Holmes, Vancouver Silver Medalist and Pyeongchang Super-G Gold Contender, is lying naked on his back with only one leg of his pants pulled up to his knee, staring at the ceiling, _heartsick_ over an athlete in a building just three blocks away. 

It simply isn’t to be borne. 

“ _High chin, love_ ,” Greg had whispered to him just that morning near the athlete showers when he was rubbing out Sherlock’s shoulder in a perfectly normal, coach-like manner. He’d pressed too hard on a knot in a way that was not at all an accident when Sherlock had corrected him under his breath, “ _It’s ‘chin up’. How you even manage to function . . ._ ”

But Sherlock had known what Greg meant without either of them needing to elaborate. They’d known it would be like this, had come to terms with it after re-planning Sherlock’s training schedule in the medical center before John left, and still, the unfairness of it all yanks at Sherlock’s stomach in an unfamiliar way. 

This was supposed to be _their_ Olympics, he thinks to himself as he plays with his bottom lip, rolling it with his thumb. The voice in his head sounds like himself when he was fifteen, immature and whining. 

It was supposed to be _theirs_ , all three of theirs, no matter how Sherlock inwardly felt about the whole scheduling thing. It was supposed to be him and John and Greg all together in Korea, all together training, all together prepping for their events. 

And yet, they’d only had a handful of semi-blissful days around the Village before John was ripped away from them and flung far, far away. 

John and Greg both want Sherlock to _win_ , so they’re letting him _focus_.

It’s inexcusably inconvenient. Bordering on reprehensible.

Sherlock reaches down a long, bare arm to scoop his phone up off the floor, twiddling it in his fingers and almost dropping it onto his face. Surely, a sign that he is both mentally and physically compromised by the current situation. 

He opens a new text to Greg, bites his lip, then thinks better of it and deletes. Greg goes to bed strictly at 10 p.m. during the Olympics, and, because Greg is a man of silly superstition and tradition and routine, Sherlock knows he hasn’t broken that rule even this time around. Texting him now would only earn Sherlock some horrible extra rep of something torturous in the training gym the next morning.

Through the shadows, Sherlock’s eyes drift to the faint dark marks across his ribs and thigh, the remnants of the blushing purple bruises that have faded into mottled brown and gold since his fall. Greg has barely been able to glance at them without his face pulling into a tight mask, the same mask that’s there every time he asks Sherlock if he’s _sure_ he’s feeling good enough for one more run. If he’s sure, sure, _sure_.

Greg never used to ask him before if he was sure. He would just tell him, and Sherlock would do it, and the universe would be properly in order. 

And all the while, Sherlock has been pretending he isn’t wearing his own mask whenever he watches Greg wince as he sits down, or Greg grit his teeth as he pushes off to ski by Sherlock’s side. Pretending he isn’t absolutely sick to his stomach at the thought that Greg is in pain, all because of him, and that Greg changes the subject to course times or Sherlock’s bruises or John bloody Watson whenever Sherlock tries to ask if his knee is alright.

Damn him. Damn him and his handsome, stupid, stubbornly brave face. Damn him and his Gold medals and his self-destructive knee. Damn his hair and his chest and his ridiculous accent.

Sherlock sighs, then runs his fingertips idly up his bare stomach, shivering at the goosebumps alighting over his skin, and his thoughts drift back to John.

John’s face the first time Sherlock ever told him that he loved him. The way John had sat there like a statue with his disgusting mug of unsweetened tea clutched in his frozen hands, sitting at their dining room table in London in shock. The way John had just stared at him, his face unreadable, as Sherlock poked his head out of the fridge, heart silently pounding, and repeated himself, “ _I hope you realize by now that I love you. Did you hear me before? I am in love with you._ ”

How John’s eyes had transformed into deep, fathomless wells, and how he’d jumped when Greg barged out of the bathroom door in a swirl of shower steam not three seconds later.

“ _Ah, so you have told him?_ ” Greg had said, looking between Sherlock and John’s stand-off in the kitchen with such a look of _fondness_ it had made Sherlock want to melt down into a puddle of illogical goo.

John’s eyelashes when Greg had reached out and touched John’s cheek. “ _And you know that I love you, too. That I have always loved you,_ ” Greg had said, as if it was perfectly reasonable to be saying such a thing when he was half-naked, still flushed from the shower, having just walked into that conversation with no warning at all.

John’s smile, when he finally unfroze from his trance, and stood up shakily on his good leg, drawing them both towards him as he laughed, and said, “ _What the fuck is my fucking life_ ,” and then dragged them both to bed.

Sherlock grins to himself, now. Smirks, more like. That had been the first time they ever did anything with Sherlock trapped between them. The fullness of it, the incapacitating _need_ that had surged through his body, Greg’s hands around his hips, John’s fingers through his hair. Looking up to watch Greg tug at John’s nipple, flicking the ring. Sherlock’s own erection rutting against the sheets as John’s semen dribbled out of his mouth and down his chin, Greg’s balls slapping into his thighs . . .

With a deep sigh of resignation, Sherlock looks down at himself, illuminated by the ghostly light pouring through the window from the streetlamps outside.

His cock is utterly soft. 

He looks at it for a long moment, at the soft skin nestled innocently in dark curls, tucked up against the smooth lines of his thigh. A familiar wave of frustration starts to prickle under his skin, building up deep in his bones. 

It’s the wave that threatens to drown him, cloud over his vision and take over his mind. The wave that lifts a finger and mocks him for being a grown man, lying on his bed and remembering the time his _two_ partners took him from in front and behind. And yet, not even this detailed, mind-palace-level memory of it can get him even _slightly_ hard. Not even a twitch.

He bites his lip and presses a fist against one of his closed eyes.

John. He was thinking about John. John who told him just days ago that it’s more than enough for Sherlock to simply be there when he and Greg have sex. John who grabbed Sherlock’s hand right as Greg was making him come.

His John.

John’s objectionable jumpers, and John’s little curly hairs behind his ear when he lets his regular haircut slide, and John’s tongue wetting his bottom lip, and John’s jaw when he shoots a gun. When he watches Greg ski.

John’s blue, blue eyes from the first few seconds of his Paralympics spotlight from the BBC.

Greg and Sherlock had tried to sit down and watch it two nights ago, after a long day of training and two more interviews when they were both exhausted, and tired of each other, and silently missing John so much it was practically a palpable smoke choking up the air.

They’d sat down on Sherlock’s Village bed, crowded on the tiny mattress, and on silent agreement, Greg had picked up Sherlock’s iPad and pulled up John’s footage, not commenting on the fact that Sherlock already had it saved as an internet tab.

The room had been quiet, only their shoulders touching, as the screen had slowly faded in to a sea of pure white snow; the slick slide of skis etching themselves through the ice; the camera bobbing and weaving as it made its way across the snow; John’s breath, deep and rumbling and strong, as the point-of-view shot took them across one of his training routes from California.

The camera had suddenly cut to John’s face, just his fiercely determined eyes as he lifted up his goggles, brow dripping with sweat and hair plastered down to his head.

A voice had spoken as the camera focused on John’s eyelashes, a woman newscaster Sherlock had come to loathe over the last three years: 

“ _Breaking News Tonight: A British pilot in Afghanistan thought to be killed in action during a raid-gone-wrong Tuesday night has been found. Alive. Sources tell us that Group Captain John Watson, a thirteen-year veteran of the Royal Air Force, is in severe critical condition in the hospital base near Kandahar, suffering broken bones, third-degree burns, and at least one limb amputation. His helicopter crashed over one-thousand feet to the ground after catching fire from an enemy hit. We’re joined now by BBC War Correspondent Shannon Waites for more information on Group Captain Watson’s condition. Shannon?_ ”

The photograph of black-dot-John lying in the sand.

Greg had paused the video so quickly his fingertip made an audible whack against the screen. Sherlock had taken it from his hands, thrown it to the ground, then turned and curled up in Greg’s arms. Sherlock had lost himself in the scent of Greg’s skin, the familiar weight of his palms rubbing up Sherlock’s back, the beloved width of his chest, until the newscaster’s voice finally faded away from his mind into nothing but the deep inhale of Greg’s breath.

“ _Je suis là, love_ ,” Greg had whispered to him in a rough voice. “ _Il est là._ ”

They hadn’t said a single word more about it. 

Now, days later, Sherlock never wants to see that Paralympics spotlight ever again. He wants to fire every single person involved. He wants to burn the Paralympics to the ground. He wants to rip out that newscaster’s voicebox so he’ll never have to hear her stupid, morose, blase news-reading voice talk about _John Watson’s life_ right between the summer’s hottest fashion trends and the newest E. coli outbreak.

He wants to delete the fact that Wing Commander James Sholto apparently had the stomach to sit through that entire fifteen-minute spotlight, but he knows he cannot forget. He’ll delete every single one of his course times before he forgets that.

The next thing Sherlock realizes, he’s standing in the middle of his room with sweatpants pulled on, already sticking one arm into his Team France jacket with nothing on underneath. 

He looks down dumbly at his bare toes clutching the ugly carpet, running through the last three minutes to see if he’d had a brilliant idea while he was distracted—one that his body started to enact without his conscious knowledge.

But no brilliant idea presents itself, and he’s still just standing in the middle of his room half-dressed for no reason. 

So Sherlock Holmes does the only thing he can be expected to do in a moment like this, and he finishes zipping up his jacket according to plan, slips on snow boots without any socks, then creeps out into the hallway and out the building front door.

The Village is quiet, the snow muffling every sound but the distant hiss of wind. Sherlock shivers, and thinks that if he were a man with regrets, his biggest regret would be the fact that he had not stopped and taken ten seconds to put on another layer of clothing under his jacket.

He quirks his lips as he takes a moment to rub his hands over his arms, standing in the middle of the pure field of fresh snow. A few flakes fall onto his cheeks, turning instantly to water at the heat of his skin. A droplet runs over his lips and into his mouth.

For a single moment, he closes his eyes, and his mind transports him back to a time when he was also standing in cold, empty streets with fresh snow, when he was also too tired and improperly dressed. When he was also in an Olympic Village.

That time had ended in him snorting something vile into his nose just an hour later in the loo of a seedy Russian bar. A bar that was proudly displaying Super-Greg’s fifth Gold Medal Ceremony on the grimy televisions when Sherlock came out, still wiping his upper lip with a shaking hand, wondering what the fuck he was going to do now.

It seems impossible, by any and all standards of reason and physics, that Sherlock is standing in the same scene now only four years later, with a text on his phone from Super-Greg that says, “ _bonne nuit love,_ ” and a clean drug test back in his room, and a soldier, a bloody _pilot_ , who loves to kiss him sleeping just three blocks away.

He’s running before he can think to stop. He ignores how embarrassing it must look to be alone, underdressed, somewhat famous, running through the Olympics Village snow in the middle of the night like a little kid. The flakes falling from the sky catch on his nose and eyelashes, wetting his curls as they fall into his face, and he feels young, impossibly young, and alive, and _good_.

He looks once over his shoulder as he approaches John’s building, scanning for any security guards or cameras pointed his way. But the Village security is lax, it seems, and his gaze follows the slurred laughter drifting to him from far down the walkway, watching as two athletes make their stumbling way either to or from a night of drunken sex and celebration.

Briefly, he considers doing the normal thing. Knocking on the door, flashing his badge at the night guard sure to be present, and being let into John’s building in the approved, secure way. Greg would praise him for being sensible. John would be pleasantly surprised.

Then he brushes that thought aside. John Watson didn’t choose to fall in love with a bastard who pushed him off a cliff on a monoski for nothing.

He takes in a deep breath, presses his bare hands to the freezing metal of the fire escape, and begins to climb. The dull ache in his sore muscles feels good as he heaves himself up the rails, using body parts that haven’t been taxed day-in and day-out by his ski training. Sherlock can almost believe that he doesn’t have the crippling expectation of an Olympic Gold medal pressing down on his shoulders. That he has nobody to please, nobody to prove wrong, nobody to make proud. That he can just climb and climb and climb and do something impressive that has nothing to do with skis.

He’s still wondering whether freezing-fire-escape-climbing could ever be an Olympic Sport in the next thirty-odd years when he reaches the window he knows is John’s, two stories up. Biting his lip and trying _not_ to think about the thirty foot drop below him (Christ, Greg would _murder_ him if he died falling from a fire escape now), Sherlock adjusts himself until he’s secure within the railings, then cups his palms to peer in the window.

They have, thankfully, left the curtains cracked open. With the ghostly yellow light streaming in from the Village walkway lamps behind him, Sherlock can just make out the two double beds inside the room, two bodies lying still under the sheets, and neatly organized stacks of gear lined up along the walls. 

Nothing is out of place. Ski boots are lined up by the door in polite pairs, something that looks like a prosthetic arm is resting on the small desk, and John’s leg is lying next to him on his bed like a second body, right within arm’s reach so he won’t have to ask his roommate to hand it to him in the morning.

It makes Sherlock sick. 

John should be crushed tightly in someone’s arms, be having his body massaged, be whispered to that he is brave and alluring and fantastic. John should be surrounded by the chaos of people who love him, by discarded socks and his leg halfway across the room on a chair and three pairs of skis haphazardly littering the carpet.

He shouldn’t be lying on his back like he did that night in the sand, perfectly in line.

“ _Thinking of you_ ,” John had texted him earlier that evening, when Sherlock had let him know he and Greg had a course-run-through meeting to attend at their usual dinner time. 

John Watson _never_ texts Hallmark-greeting-card sentiments like “ _thinking of you_ ” to Sherlock. Never. Not in all their years. 

John sends those sorts of texts to Greg, instead, and then he tells Sherlock to fuck off, or to quit being such an obnoxious prick, or to go suck a dick.

John hasn’t texted Sherlock something curse-filled in what feels like weeks. Sherlock misses it desperately.

Something has to change. 

Gritting his teeth, Sherlock makes his final decision. He hadn’t realized there was still a chance of him turning back empty handed until this moment. But now, the answer screams at him. It simply must be done. John will be livid, will curse him for days, will blame Sherlock for ruining his sleep, destroying both their chances at Gold, traumatizing his roommate, etcetera. 

It will be unequivocally worth it.

The window latch is easy to maneuver. Really, the IOC should be appalled at the lack of security. The price of equipment kept in these Village rooms _alone_ . . . 

But he can’t afford to be distracted. Within thirty seconds, Sherlock has John’s room window rigged open, and he slides it along its groove until there’s a wide enough space for him to just fit through. His boots sink into the grubby carpet when he lands inside, and he carefully controls his breathing as his eyes adjust to the dark. A black thrill jolts up his spine as he glances around, taking in the easiest path through the room.

Now _this_ is a challenge. _This_ is that roar in his ears the first time he ever flung himself down a mountain on a pair of skis. He suddenly realizes he hasn’t felt this surge of adrenaline in a very long time before a race. This hiss of danger, and the risk of tempting fate. 

And yet, he’s feeling it all right now—standing pathetically in the middle of a low-budget hotel room, trying to kidnap his partner for no other reason than that he is bored and said partner is lonely.

Well, beggars can’t be choosers, he thinks. He doesn’t squash down the excited thrumming in his heart, but instead lets it grow as he creeps through the shadows toward John’s bed, avoiding the bags of gear. He watches him for a moment, standing over his bed and telling himself he’s not being a creep. 

The truth is, Sherlock has watched John sleep for countless hours. He’s sat and watched him on those horrible nights when John moves out to the couch. He’s sat and watched him wrapped tightly around Greg’s chest. He’s sat and counted his freckles, the lines of his tattoo, his piercings, his limbs. He’s sat and watched him until John opens his eyes, and reaches for him, and whispers his name. Until Sherlock lies down and lets himself be held, practically rocked back to elusive sleep. 

Love crackles across his palms, so sudden and blinding it takes Sherlock by surprise. He will never understand what made him look up that day on the slopes, what made him look off to the right where he first spotted John Watson sitting alone. He will never understand what conspiracy made it so John wanted to see him again, and again, and again. 

But he has a kidnapping to attend to.

Sherlock pulls up each of his sleeves with a practiced flick, bends over until his nose is just one inch from John’s, and places his palm in the center of John’s warm chest.

“John,” he whispers under his breath. 

John, the lightest sleeper currently alive, shifts once in his sleep.

Sherlock increases the pressure of his palm, just enough to feel the give of John’s ribs under his fingers. His beautiful, breathing, working ribs.

“John.”

John’s nose twitches. Sherlock barely restrains himself from kissing it. 

“Group Captain,” he tries, mostly to make himself laugh. 

Only, that’s what does it. 

John’s eyelids flutter open, squinting into the dark, and then he gasps, and Sherlock is suddenly thrown head first across the bed, then man-handled in a single breath onto his back, his arms pinned to the mattress and John’s elbow pressing hard on his neck.

“What the— _oh_. Christ, Sherlock, I could have . . .”

Sherlock tries to calmly gulp in a breath, anxious not to show how much John really is constricting his airway, and he pretends that he is physically taken down in the middle of the night on a fairly consistent basis.

He also pretends that he didn’t just feel a greater surge of lust than he has in recent memory. That John’s arms pinning his shoulders isn’t affecting him more than his entire memory of that one night earlier in his room. 

“It’s only me,” he whispers, then winces at his own stupidity.

“Yeah. Yeah, I fucking got that _now_. But, Jesus—”

John sighs, then leans down and presses his clammy forehead into Sherlock’s chest. John’s breathing hard, and Sherlock can practically feel his pulse pumping through the mattress. His left knee is shaking from the effort of holding up his entire body weight, his right thigh haphazardly draped across Sherlock’s own. 

In a different situation, Sherlock would feel momentarily proud (and shamefully guilty) at the reminder that John trusts him enough to let him feel the bare skin of his stump, but not now. Not when Sherlock is clearly an idiot of the highest order.

“What the fuck are you doing?” John hisses, before Sherlock can say anything else.

They both cast a glance at John’s roommate, still blessedly asleep and now turned onto his side, his back facing their way.

Sherlock decides that, in the interest of keeping the roommate asleep, the quicker this conversation the better. “I’m kidnapping you,” he whispers.

John’s jaw clenches. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

“I’m waking you up because I’m bored and you’re lonely and you can sleep in late tomorrow morning if you want to make up for it since your practice time doesn’t start until ten.”

John inhales a long breath in the darkness. Sherlock tracks the faded glow from the streetlamps as it cascades over John’s eyelashes, illuminating the line of his jaw. John’s fingers tremble where they still pin Sherlock to the mattress, his heart pumping so fast Sherlock can see the vein pulsing in John’s neck.

Sherlock hates himself. He hates his stupid brain and his stupid ideas and his stupid plans which make John think he’s being attacked in a war when he’s just trying to sleep.

But then John’s palms move until they’re resting over Sherlock’s chest, bunching up the material of Sherlock’s jacket, and John sighs through his nose. “Something tells me that’s the right answer, but it’s still so bloody insane I don’t know what to say.”

Sherlock covers John’s hands with his own. “Say you’ll come with me.”

“Sherlock, you need to slee—”

“Your event is before mine now, so that argument doesn’t hold any water. You should have said that _you_ need to sleep, which I wouldn’t have believed, but would have at least respected. However you chose the wrong course, and now you’ve no choice but to come with me to make up for all my trouble coming out here.”

Sherlock swallows hard. He can’t remember the last time he actually whispered like this, like a schoolkid hiding under the blankets. Something about whispering in the dark with John Watson next to a sleeping stranger makes his heart pump in a strange rhythm he hasn’t felt since he was a small child, amazed by the first time he ever saw snow. 

John, apparently, is not experiencing the same quiet euphoria. He just sighs again, sounding like he’s just turned one hundred years old. “Sherlock, you can’t just . . . I’ll see you tomorrow, I promise. We can have dinner. But you need—”

“How can you refuse when you haven’t even heard the plan yet?”

Sherlock does not have a plan, actually. Not at all. But one starts flashing through his mind as soon as he says the words, and a burst of triumph burns in his chest as the tired resignation on John’s face briefly gives way to curiosity.

“Well?”

Sherlock shifts his body so that John can rest his thigh in between his legs, and John lowers onto his elbows, his arms bracketing Sherlock’s face.

The roommate snores once, and Sherlock and John both jump before Sherlock rolls his eyes and John holds in what sounds suspiciously like a giggle.

“The plan,” Sherlock whispers, oozing confidence into his voice. “Yes, the plan . . . we’re . . . we’re going to go and see Greg. Right now. Obviously.”

John’s mouth twists, but his eyes are warm. “You tit. Greg is asleep considering it’s arse o’clock in the morning, and well past ten. And the vans aren’t even running anymore. I am _not_ walking through the fucking snow two miles just to get to his building.”

“Who says we’re walking?”

“Every rule and regulation surrounding the Olympic Village says we are walking if the vans aren’t running.”

“Well, _I_ certainly don’t say so.”

“And what does the Great Sherlock Holmes say, then?”

Sherlock moves his hands up John’s warm sides, shivering at the heavy weight of him back in his arms, the sturdy bone and muscle of his strong back. He can feel the curiosity burning just beneath John’s skin, threatening to override his ridiculous sense of morals and common sense. Sherlock plays along.

“You’re awfully full of questions,” he says. “What, are you scared?”

John’s eyes narrow. “Nope.”

“Scared of a few measly security guards and some rules? The hero of the RAF? Distinguished Flying Cross Recipient?”

Sherlock knows the moment that he’s won. Can see the beautiful shift in John’s face, the burning excitement in his limbs, the low sense of adventure, the hum around his body that John always gets right before he shoots a gun, or pushes off down a slope.

But John still sighs one last time, just to make a point of showing his displeasure. Sherlock loves it. Drinks it in like he’s been dying of thirst.

“I don’t know what to do with you half the time,” John whispers, his lips fighting a smile.

Sherlock smirks and runs a hand over the firm curve of John’s arse. “Join the club, Watson. I’m pretty sure Greg’s had t-shirts made up. Now let’s go.”

It takes no time at all for John to get dressed and geared up for the outdoors. Sherlock silently praises John’s undying, military-grade organizational habits as the roommate tosses and turns on the other bed, threatening to wake up at any moment. It isn’t until John is walking toward the door and reaching for the handle when he turns back and frowns in Sherlock’s direction.

“Did you . . . did you pick the lock?” he whispers. “How? It’s just a keycard . . .”

Sherlock shakes his head and gestures over his shoulder. “The window. Obviously.”

John looks at him for a long moment, his face carefully blank. “I’m going to fucking pretend I didn’t hear that,” he says as he opens the door and steps out into the hall. “Climbing up a bloody building in the middle of the night. Fucking God.”

Sherlock just grins, his chest tight and hot with churning emotion as John looks back at him with a mix of irritation, bafflement, and something like awe.

By the time they’ve made it out into the courtyard, Sherlock’s dangerous mission feels decidedly more pedestrian in nature, and the two of them amble through the snow as a fresh wave of flakes start to fall from the sky, glittering in the streetlamps like falling stars. The crunch of their boots echoes across the empty Village, and Sherlock takes in deep gulps of the icy air until his lungs prickle with the stretch.

“Are you even wearing a shirt?” John asks after a few silent minutes.

Sherlock realizes he’s been hugging his arms around himself, forgetting to be casual about how freezing it is, and shrugs. “Not entirely.”

“Socks?”

“Hmhmm.”

“Pants?”

“Similar response.”

John laughs then, high and easy and muffled by the endless blanket of silver snow. Sherlock turns around and gazes at him through the starlit shadows, at the easy slope of John’s shoulders, his hands held in his coat pockets, and the breeze blowing his soft hair as if he isn’t currently sneaking through the Olympic Village after coming out of a deep sleep to physically take Sherlock Holmes down back in his bed.

Sherlock’s breath catches, and he suddenly cannot remember what is even special about a Gold medal. 

He cannot fathom how the hell that could ever be important when he gets to see John Watson, looking like _this_. When he gets to walk with John as if they’re the only two people left on earth, laughing in the fresh snowfall with snowflakes clinging to their hair and cheeks. 

The trembling giddiness builds up in his chest and threatens to overwhelm him. He wants to stay here forever. He wants to stand here where John is looking at him like he’s some unexpected, otherworldly thing. Where John is lighting up with quiet purpose over something as simple as walking through fresh snow in the middle of the night. And Sherlock _did_ that for him. 

He smiles at John, his pure, open smile, and he thinks he’s about to say something embarrassingly soft and sentimental when John steps forward to brush a single flake from Sherlock’s cheek.

“Christ, you . . .” John whispers. His cold fingertips trace Sherlock’s jaw. “Look at you.”

Something shifts at the rough tone of his voice. Something hot and curling and sharp at the edges. Something unspeakably dangerous.

“John,” Sherlock breathes, the only word he remembers.

John’s jaw is tight, and a fire burns behind his eyes, lighting them up into electric blue. He licks his lips, his breath fogging between them in the cold. 

And then, before Sherlock’s very eyes, a decision passes over John’s face.

“Come here,” John says, his voice rough and husky.

Sherlock’s body melts. He can’t obey fast enough. He lets John pull him by the arm to the nearest walkway out of the pools of flickering light, hidden by fog and shadows. Lets John yank him forward against his body before thrusting him back into the wall, his back smacking the stone with a surprised puff of air and a grunt.

Sherlock wants to say something horribly amusing and clever about Group Captain John Watson coming out in full force in the shadows, but then John’s mouth is on his in a desperate, bruising kiss, sighing across his tongue and filling Sherlock’s mouth with wet heat.

Sherlock’s brain turns off. It flies away. It deletes itself. It implodes.

Cloaked in flurries of snow, hemmed in by walls of foggy cold, Sherlock’s skin burns at the freezing touch of John’s hands. They rake up under his jacket and grab his ribs, caressing his sides. Sherlock groans at the shocks of cold, his spine trembling out of his control, as John presses him back with the full force of his body and licks into his mouth, crushing his lips, spilling warmth down Sherlock’s front until all Sherlock is aware of are John’s hands, John’s tongue, John’s thigh, John’s hot breath.

John’s voice—Group Captain Watson’s voice, slicing the fog.

“I could’ve killed you,” John groans into Sherlocks neck, where he’s licking a burning wet stripe up Sherlock’s skin. “Fuck, waking me up like that. I could’ve had you out cold. Down on your face.” John’s fingers grip and pull at Sherlock’s hair. “Could’ve taken you out.”

Fireworks explode inside Sherlock’s stomach, and he clings to John, barely standing, and tries to kiss back between the pathetic whimpers spilling from his open throat. 

“John . . .” he tries. “John, please . . .”

“You should be sorry,” John moans into his mouth, biting Sherlock’s bottom lip hard. 

And _God_ , it’s been _ages_ since they were like this together, decades and centuries, and Sherlock wants it like he wants the world to keep spinning off into space. Needs it like he needs the oxygen in the air, the muscles in his legs and the skis on his feet. 

John’s body is shoving him back into the stone, pinning him with such strength Sherlock doubts he would be able to throw John off, even if he tried. He slides so far down the wall that John’s eyes are above his own. His neck rolls back so John can bite along his throat, and he hears himself begging, pleading—a voice he doesn’t even recognize whimpering out of his chest.

“Please . . . I’m sorry.”

“I bet you’re sorry.”

“I didn’t mean—John, _please_ . . .”

“On your fucking knees.”

Sherlock’s body snaps in two. The breath leaves his lungs in a keening, desperate moan, and he lets John manhandle him away from the wall before John places his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock braces himself for impact, preparing for John to shove him down to the ground, but John hesitates for a second, then pulls up Sherlock’s face by the chin for an achingly soft kiss.

It surprises Sherlock; a puff of warm air escapes from the back of his throat, and John swallows it down.

“Beautiful man,” John breathes across his mouth. His lips barely caress Sherlock’s skin, drifting over his face. “Gorgeous man. I’ve missed you.” He waits for Sherlock to open his eyes, then, still holding his chin. His eyes are incredibly blue. “Do you want this?”

Sherlock’s chest aches with the force of feeling. He bobs his head up and down like an idiot, unable to look away from John’s face.

“ _John_.”

John kisses him one last time, chaste and dry with his cold lips, then his hands are back on Sherlock’s shoulders, and he pushes him down. Hard.

Sherlock drops. 

He can’t stop his moan as his knees hit the pavement. His eyes are level with the growing bulge in John’s snowpants, pressing towards his lips. His mouth waters, and he looks up at John’s face through the fog and shadows, the glittering light of the snowflakes clinging to his panting chest.

He _loves_ this. This is why Sherlock was _born_. It doesn’t matter that his knees are soaking wet in the slushy snow on the hard ground. It doesn’t matter that he’s freezing. It doesn’t matter that his cock is still soft tucked between his thighs. Because he is _burning_ up, trembling with the want to see John Watson fall apart above him. To have John’s pleasure and his lifeblood and his bravery all vulnerable and laid out in Sherlock’s hands, begging to be kept safe. Begging to feel good.

“Sherlock,” warns John’s voice from above him, breathless and terrifying. “Now.”

Sherlock’s heart pounds. His fingers shake with adrenaline and want as he reaches up and yanks open the zip of John’s snowpants, pulling everything down to John’s knees in one practiced tug. John’s full cock springs free and bobs by Sherlock’s cheek, hot and ruddy and filling the air with the intoxicating scent of John’s semen and sweat. 

He’s already so fucking hard.

Sherlock’s mouth fills with spit, his jaw aching to take John deep inside him and swallow him down until he can’t breathe without tasting John, John, _John_.

“Take it,” he hears above him, rough and low as John’s hand grasps his own cock and guides it to Sherlock’s freezing lips. John pulls back the foreskin and slaps the burning tip of his erection against Sherlock’s chin.

Sherlock looks up at him through his lashes, blinking away the snowflakes that fall into his eyes. John’s thumb runs across Sherlock’s bottom lip, and his eyes blaze.

“Don’t make me say it again, Sherlock. _Take it_.”

Sherlock very much wants John to say it again, but he also wants to feel the heavy weight of John’s cock on his tongue more than anything on earth, so he takes in a breath, licks his dry lips, and leans in.

The burst of pleasure that explodes in Sherlock’s chest as he sucks John’s cock straight into his mouth makes him cry out around the hot skin. He clings to John’s thighs, the familiar mix of soft skin and hard metal and plastic, and he draws John into him as he takes him deeper into his mouth, caressing John’s erection with his tongue.

“Fuck yes,” John moans, breathless through the fog. “God, swallow me down. Just like that. _Fuck_.”

John’s hands are in his hair, his rough, careful fingers gripped tight around his curls like they would pull on a live trigger, the muscles of his thighs trembling as he pumps forward into Sherlock’s wet mouth.

Sherlock drowns in it. Drowns in John inside him, and in front of him, and on top of him. John on his tongue, and down his throat, stretching his lips wide, dripping into his mouth. 

He ignores sharp ice staining into his knees, and Sherlock swipes his rolling tongue around John’s full erection, licking into his foreskin, stroking his slit, again and again and again, taking him in deep until his nose is pressed into John’s soft hair. He breathes him in, filling his lungs, then he swallows as John gasps curses above him. He bobs to the wet slide and suck of his spit coating John’s prick across his tongue. As John’s thumb traces the edges of Sherlock’s lips where they wrap tight around his cock, aching and stretched wide.

“Your fucking mouth,” John groans. Sherlock looks up at him, and John’s golden hair is damp with sweat, hanging down over his brow. His chest heaving and his neck tense.

Sherlock closes his eyes and hums. He can feel John pulsing, brimming with the need to come, to pour down Sherlock’s throat as he gets harder, tighter.

He presses against the back of John’s thighs with his hands, begging John to thrust into him, to take him, to have no mercy, and John takes him right to that glorious, perfect point where Sherlock can hardly breathe, where his eyes are watering, and John’s balls are nearly slamming into Sherlock’s chin as he thrusts, and John’s whispered curses escalate until they’re nothing but a wrecked, throaty cry.

“God, you on your knees. Perfect like that for me. Fuck. I’m gonna . . . Sherlock, I’m gonna—” 

John groans, just as his fingers impossibly tighten in Sherlock’s hair, and Sherlock eagerly tips his head back as John spills into his throat. He swallows him down as John pulses his hot release across his tongue.

Pleasure rolls down Sherlock’s spine, rearranging his internal organs until they are perfect and right and aligned. A familiar rush of gratitude tugs faintly in Sherlock’s chest, and he dances his fingertips across John’s shivering thighs, unable to find any words except his own touch. 

One last spurt of hot semen dribbles down Sherlock’s lips, and John’s fingers starts to gently caress Sherlock’s face, brushing his curls back from his eyes, when a noise startles them both:

“ _Hé ! Vous là ! Arrêtez tout de suite! Qu’est ce que vous faites?_ ”

“Fuck,” Sherlock groans, John’s semen still dripping down his chin, just as John whips his hand to cover his softening cock and says, “Oh God.”

Sherlock looks up from where he still kneels on the wet ground. Their eyes meet.

Sherlock knows he will later spend hours combing through exactly which emotions he sees on John’s face in this moment. The beautiful haze from his orgasm, and the want still burning in his eyes, and the desperation and the fear and the love and the _excitement_.

But for now, all he can do is smirk, his hands prickling with excitement, as the sounds of more security guards start to break through the fog of their private world. He tucks John back in with deft fingers, then springs to his feet and yanks up John’s snowpants, flicking the zipper.

“Ready, Watson?” he asks, then John grabs his neck and brings him down for a bruising, breathless kiss, nearly laughing into Sherlock’s mouth.

“Christ, you—”

“ _Arrêtez! Vous ne pouvez pas—!_ ” they hear, coming closer now, and the sounds of stomping boots crunching through the fresh snow.

Sherlock rips his mouth away from John’s, takes a breath, and starts to run. 

His smile explodes over his face, the wind whipping his cheeks, the delicious burn in his sprinting legs as he flies across the wet pavement and freezing pockets of snow, and it isn’t until he’s an entire building away that he realizes he can’t hear John running beside him. He can’t hear John’s footsteps, or John’s breathless laugh, or John’s curses.

Actually, he _can_ hear John’s curses, loud and clear as they soar through the air.

“Shit! Sherlock, you fucker, I’m not—!”

Sherlock whips around, nearly slipping onto his face on the ice, and starts to run back to where John is attempting to speed-walk through the snow. The flashlights of the guards are swarming the shadows as they give chase about one-hundred metres away, still calling for them to stop, to show some identification, to wait.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Sherlock pants out, just as John glares at him, grunting, “You fucker. I’m not wearing my running leg, you fucking arse, I can’t—”

“Your orgasm has left you incapable of thinking up cleverer insults, apparently. Hop on.” 

Sherlock turns and squats, holding his hands behind him to catch John. When John doesn’t immediately leap onto his back, Sherlock turns, squinting now against the flashlights’ ever-growing glare.

“You can’t be serious,” John says. “I’m not gonna fucking _ride_ you like some—”

“Well, it’s that or speak to these lovely French IOC guards about why your cock was just out in public thirty seconds ago. I doubt you have enough fluency to fully handle the conversation. You take your pick.”

John shakes his head, his fists clenching. “God, you wanker . . .”

“Wanker? What are we—fourteen and at boarding school? Now come _on_ , John.”

Sherlock’s heart pounds. He watches John eye his back with pure distaste written across his mouth, then John glances back once at the guards, shakes his head, unclenches his fists, and groans, “Fuck it.”

He steps forward and leaps in one smooth movement onto Sherlock’s back, and Sherlock catches him at the same time he starts running again, narrowly avoiding the spot where he nearly slipped before.

“ _Je vous ai dit d’attendre!"_ someone calls out behind them, their flashlight illuminating the snow where Sherlock sprints. “ _C’est une zone sécurisée. Vous n’avez pas l’autorisation de—!”_

“If you drop me, I will make _sure_ Greg tampers with your skis before your final run,” John hisses into Sherlock’s ear.

Sherlock’s grin grows impossibly wider. “Of course. I would expect nothing less,” he pants back.

They fly through the empty Village, whipping around dark, abandoned corners and courtyards flooded with eerie yellow light. Sherlock looks back once at the guards and catches one of them slip and fall right on their face. The others stop to help him up for a brief moment, and Sherlock immediately sees his chance, and takes it.

Sherlock cuts a hard right without warning, and John curses as he clings to Sherlock’s neck to stay on his back. Sherlock runs like he hasn’t run in ages, leaps over a two-foot-tall embankment of snow in a shortcut, and he barely slows down, gasping for breath, when the line of official Village golf-carts comes into view, innocently waiting under the moonlight in the dark.

“No. This cannot be happening. This cannot be the plan,” John says as Sherlock taps his hip in warning before setting him down on the ground.

Still, John follows him as they jog towards the nearest one. 

“It very well can be,” Sherlock says, reaching into his pocket.

“You can’t—Sherlock, you can’t just hotwire these, you know. It’s not like a normal car. You need the IOC keycard—”

John stops just as Sherlock whips out an official IOC golf-cart key from his inner jacket pocket. Sweat pours down the back of his neck and his fingertips shake as he tries to catch his breath through the stitch in his side. 

It’s wonderful. Sherlock cannot even remember the last time he felt this glorious and carefree. This _alive_ , with the blood in his veins pounding at the edges of his vision.

He cannot remember, as they leap in the golf-cart to John’s endless grumbling, the last time John looked at him like he does now, just as Sherlock starts up the ignition and floors the gas. Like Sherlock is worth being kidnapped by at one o’clock in the morning. Like Sherlock is the Olympic torch. Like Sherlock is more glorious than every Afghanistan sunrise over the desert, than every ski course, than the first time John ever leapt in a cockpit and flew.

It’s intoxicating. Sherlock wonders momentarily if maybe he actually is drunk, then shakes his head and focuses on the wheels as he tries not to spin out on the slippery ice.

“They gave up, looks like,” John says, still trying to catch his breath as he looks behind them. “God, I hope they didn’t get a good enough look at us. At you. What if they have the power to—”

“Trust me, they’ve probably seen people having full-on intercourse fully naked in the snow. We were only going to get a slap on the wrist. And they didn’t even see this part.”

“The property theft, you mean? With what I presume is Greg’s stolen coach’s key?”

Sherlock grins as they fly down the twisting roads towards the coach’s building. “Exactly.”

He glances at the wind whipping through John’s hair, brushing it back from his face. John suddenly smiles at him. He looks ten years younger than Sherlock has seen him look in months.

The emotions hit him all at once—a straight punch to his chest.

_This_ John doesn’t look like he had to watch Sherlock fall down on his neck on an Olympic slope. Doesn’t look like Sherlock has disappointed him or let him down, over and over. Doesn’t look like he’s under any stress to keep his whole life a secret. Or to win.

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say—if he can possibly put the emotions in his chest into words. Instead, he moves his palm over to John’s thigh and squeezes. John covers his hand and silently squeezes back, looking out at the starlit snow as it rushes past the cart. 

John covers his mouth with his fist, hiding a warm smile and shaking his head like he doesn’t know whether to kiss Sherlock or yell at him. Like he can’t decide whether Sherlock is the most lovely or the most ridiculous thing on the planet.

Sherlock’s chest grows warm despite the freezing air, and his cheeks heat as he lets himself fall in love with John Watson all over again. 

-

Little did Sherlock think that the most difficult part of their adventure would be getting from the door of Greg’s building to Greg himself. 

For the fifth time, Sherlock tries on his most winning, innocent smile. He leans forward on his elbows onto the security desk just inside, where the person on duty is having _none_ of it that Sherlock simply needs to see his coach right this second, and no it cannot wait.

“I would be ever so grateful,” Sherlock says, stomping on John’s foot as John stifles a laugh behind him, “If you would be so obliged as to let me up into the main building to speak with my coach, five-time Olympic medalist Gregory Lestrade. You see, it is imperative to my training that we—”

“I’ve told you, sir. No visitors into the Coach’s Building after hours unless you are with a coach to vouch for your entry. Your question can wait until morning.”

Sherlock internally curses Greg to hell and back for going to sleep at such an ungodly hour as 10 pm, or else he would have tried calling him already to just bloody come down and vouch for them at the desk for this insufferable, rule-following, paper-pusher. But alas.

The guard looks back down at his magazine and ignores them. Sherlock resists the urge to say something idiotic like, “ _Do you realize who I am?_ ”

“Please, sir,” he tries again, his heart only half in it now, “It’s really just a simple thing—”

“Wallace, what’s going on out here? Someone lose their keys again or—oh! Mr. Holmes? _Sherlock Holmes?_ ”

Sherlock looks in the direction of the American voice and sees another guard coming out of the office attached to the security desk. Her eyes are wide and bright in that familiar way Sherlock has long since become immune to, and he wonders what this woman would do if she knew that Sherlock was actually tempted to kiss her right here on the spot for her impeccable timing.

“Yes,” he says, laying it on thick and practically oozing over the counter. He tries to look adorably self-conscious, looking up through his lashes. “Yes, it is me.”

John snorts at the fake-humility in Sherlock’s voice, and Sherlock kicks his foot again, then winces when he realizes John has purposefully moved so that Sherlock would kick his prosthetic foot instead, which bloody hurts Sherlock’s toes.

The new guard’s mouth drops open. “Wow, I . . . I never thought I’d ever get to . . . Is something wrong? Do you need anything?”

Sherlock lets a curl fall artfully into his eyes, briefly wondering how his homosexuality doesn’t announce itself in a neon sign above his head everywhere he goes. 

“Actually, yes,” he croons, or tries to, at least. “If you would be ever so kind as to do me a favor. I find myself in a bit of a predicament. Something urgent has come up regarding my training—you know how these things go—and, you see, my coach Gregory Lestrade, his phone appears to be off, and it really is ever so important that I speak with—”

“Oh, of course, Mr. Holmes. Of course, no problem! I—we would love to help.”

The American gives a scathing look to the original guard, who is looking up at her from his magazine with a look of pure annoyance and betrayal.

She looks back to Sherlock, practically bouncing on her toes. “I’ll buzz you in right now. Of course.”

Then her eyes catch sight of John for the first time since she entered, and her starstruck giddiness falters. “Oh . . . and this is . . .?”

“My personal assistant,” Sherlock declares, just as John is opening his mouth to probably say something idiotic like, “ _Hello, I’m just John, don’t worry about little old me, I’ve only killed people in a war_.”

Sherlock claps a hand to John’s shoulder and puffs up his chest. “You know, he is invaluable to my training regimen. I can hardly figure out when to eat breakfast without him. So if you’ll be so kind, it really is necessary to my success that he go in there with me. Silly me, I never can remember any of the details Gregory tells me. But _John_ here . . .”

“Of course,” the guard beams at him, already moving toward the door. “Yes, yes we wouldn’t want to ruin your chances at Gold this year, would we?”

She’s vibrating now, and Sherlock takes momentary pity on her, helped along by John pinching the back of his arm. Hard.

“And . . .” he starts, awkwardly holding out a hand, “And, I really must thank you for your help. It’s so nice to meet you, Ms.—?”

“Oh, oh my God, um . . . It’s Kate. Kate McLaren. Oh, but you don’t need to know my last name. Of course. That would be silly. Wow, it’s such an honor, sir. I can’t tell you. I’m such a fan . . .”

The girl pumps Sherlock’s arm so enthusiastically he thinks it might fall out of the socket, and he uses thoughts of soon being in Greg’s warm bed to keep himself from scowling in irritation as she goes on and on and on—the reason she started skiing, and watching him on television, and oh it’s such a shame about Sochi, and his hair looks even softer in person, and his poster on her wall, etcetera, etcetera.

“Your personal fucking assistant?” John hisses at him when they’re finally alone on Greg’s floor, nearly fifteen minutes, two photographs, and one autograph later. Sherlock’s hand still hurts from Kate’s iron grip.

He fiddles through his inner jacket pocket as they come to Greg’s door, searching for the other stolen key-card he knows is in there while he stops John’s hand from knocking with a wave of his palm.

“Well it had to be something important enough that you would need to be with me _right now_. And she obviously didn’t know who you were by sight. So . . .”

“So you make me your employee, in this fantasy world of yours, where I have to keep track of all your appointments in my little datebook because you’re such an idiot you can’t keep it all straight?”

Sherlock smirks and ignores John’s huff of disbelief as he swipes Greg’s key-card through the door and gently pushes it open.

“I find it hilarious that you’re so worried about a power imbalance when I can still taste your semen in my mouth,” Sherlock mumbles, which makes John look at him for a moment before he bursts into a laugh, just as the two of them spill into Greg’s darkened room.

Only, it isn’t dark at all.

Greg’s desk lamp is on, and he’s lying fully awake at one in the morning on his bed with three bags of ice surrounding his knee, elevated on a pillow, and his laptop open on his bare stomach.

Sherlock catches a glimpse of the video Greg appears to be watching—a fuzzy Youtube clip of the Salt Lake City Super-G Finals, and Sherlock’s stomach does a horrible flip just as Greg jumps in surprise and slams the laptop closed.

“What are you two—how did you—?”

John crosses the room as Greg sputters and leans down over him, cupping Greg’s face in his hands before Greg has a chance to move the ice away from his knee.

“I’ve been kidnapped. I’m terribly distressed,” John says, then he kisses him.

Sherlock looks at Greg as John does so, and his throat feels tight with a nauseating wash of sadness. He can feel Greg’s embarrassment, thick in the room. He knows that Greg knows Sherlock saw what video he was watching. He knows that Greg would rather be caught dead than have John witness him struggling with his knee to the point where he apparently needs to ice it in the middle of the night. 

He can see the shame in Greg’s shoulders, the controlled surprise in his eyes, as John kisses him again before smoothing the silver hair back from his face.

“Your hands are freezing,” Greg finally says, swallowing hard to get his voice to work. He looks over at Sherlock, and Sherlock catches the silent plea to help him with the ice.

Sherlock does. He pushes John out of the way, much to John’s half-laughing indignation, and whips the ice bags off Greg’s knee while removing the pillow. “Obviously his hands are freezing,” Sherlock says, “seeing as how we trekked across heaven and earth to get here to you. And also, honestly, Greg, icing on your sheets without a plastic barrier is the height of incompetence. You’ll have a damp spot there for ages when you’re trying to sleep. Can’t trust you to do anything.”

Sherlock can see John eyeing Greg’s pink, swollen knee with concern, but then John just covers Greg’s leg with the blanket once Sherlock goes to throw out the ice, and Greg takes John’s hands in his own, blowing on them to get them warm.

“Kidnapped?” Greg prompts, heading off a potentially awkward silence.

John rolls his eyes. “Yes, _somebody_ crawled in my window, sprinted across the Village, lied to get in your building, and broke into your room all because he was _bored_.”

Greg carefully frowns. “You sprinted?”

John, to his credit, doesn’t even blink. “This fucker carried me,” he says, jabbing a thumb Sherlock’s way. “It was tempting to feed him a carrot or brush down his flanks at the end of the ride.”

Greg glances once between Sherlock and John, a blank look on his face. Sherlock waits for the inevitable half-hearted scolding over it all, but instead, Greg only says, “And you came here? To see me?”

Something tugs in Sherlock’s chest at the soft sound of Greg’s voice. He plops down on the bed, purposefully half-squishing Greg, and drops Greg’s laptop carelessly to the floor. 

“Obviously we came here,” he declares, watching Greg continue to massage John’s hands. “Where else would we have wanted to go? The dining hall is closed. And John’s too much of a rule-follower to sneak onto the slopes at night. Too infuriatingly respectful of authority of any kind.”

Greg blinks a few times as John pulls their hands towards him, kissing Greg’s knuckles. Sherlock curses himself for not thinking to do this ages ago. He can’t fathom that the three of them have survived without being alone together for five days, now that they’re here. He isn’t sure how he managed to keep breathing without it.

From the slight sheen in Greg’s eyes now, he must feel the same. 

Sherlock settles back against the wall as John moves into a more comfortable position on Greg’s other side, swinging his leg around and under the top sheet, his face still flushed and brilliant from their evening chase through the snow. 

The sight of Greg staring down at John in his bed with something like _gratitude_ makes Sherlock reach out, brush Greg’s hair back from his face, and kiss his forehead. His cheek.

“ _Je t’aime, Gregory_ ,” Sherlock whispers.

Greg and John both give him quietly focused looks as he pulls away. Sherlock never initiates that, never says it first, and the air in the room suddenly feels too thick, too hot. Sherlock fights with himself not to duck his head and blush or squirm.

Greg just looks at him for another long moment before pressing a kiss to Sherlock’s lips.

“Why do you taste like cock?” Greg says as he pulls away.

John throws back his head and laughs. Sherlock finally squirms. “We may have . . . uh . . . stopped along the way for some activities.”

“Some activities the night security patrol definitely were _not_ fond of,” John adds.

Greg’s snorts, then raises one brow. “You were caught?”

Sherlock scoffs. “Obviously not. Who do you think I am?”

Greg frowns. “Do I even want to know how you got down to my building?”

John sighs and shakes his head at the ceiling. “You really don’t. But it involves a golf-cart and a stolen set of keys.”

The air settles then as Greg laughs again and rolls his eyes, the room slowly transforming into some semblance of their bedroom back in London—the scent of the three of them, three relaxed sets of lungs, limbs all warmly tangled up in a sea of sheets. Sherlock watches John trace the hairs on Greg’s chest with his fingertip, and his spine relaxes in a way it hasn’t done since their last night in Greg’s Village room over a week ago.

“I am glad you came here,” Greg whispers after a long, relaxed silence. He says it down to his feet, and John’s palm moves to stroke his stomach and ribs.

Neither of them need to voice the silent “ _us too_.” Outside the window, snow flurries whisper against the glass, fogging it up with steam.

An hour later, when the ridiculous sports movie John insisted on watching on Greg’s laptop has gone on without being watched for at least twenty minutes, and John is curled up on Greg’s side, his sleeping face pressed into Greg’s shoulder . . . When Greg is passed out and snoring, his exhales ruffling John’s hair, Sherlock closes the laptop and gently sets it on the floor, then waits for his eyes adjust to the dark room without the screen’s glow.

He looks at the two of them, wrapped up around each other, John still fully dressed. He’d had brief visions of the three of them revisiting the memory he’d had been thinking about earlier, back in his room. Visions of more cocks in his mouth, in his body, grunting sighs and wet slaps, groaned curses. The smell of sex choking the hot air in Greg’s small room. Desperate hands and frantic gasps.

But now, looking down on the moonlight spilling across Greg’s solid chest, Sherlock is momentarily struck by the trust that has been placed in his hands. The biggest secret in Greg’s life, the biggest secret in John’s, and he is entrusted to look after them both, to watch them sleep, to make sure they’re watched over through the long, cold night.

_Him_ —Sherlock Holmes. It’s almost too much to comprehend.

He quietly slips off his side of the bed and walks around to John. His practiced fingers undo his snowpants for the second time that evening, and he pulls them down while briefly lifting John’s hips. John’s eyes flutter open, just for a moment, when Sherlock’s fingers open the pressure valve on the prosthetic so he can slip off John’s leg. 

Their eyes meet in the darkness, and Sherlock’s hands still. Then John reaches down and presses a warm hand to Sherlock’s fingers before drifting back to sleep, trusting Sherlock to finish getting it off for him instead. 

Sherlock does, his throat tight, and places it gently on the floor, along with the protective sock. He sneaks into the bathroom and gets ready for bed, struck by his reflection in the mirror as he brushes his teeth with Greg’s toothbrush—the way his eyes look brighter, his skin more pink than he’s seen in days.

Then he sinks onto Greg’s bed, crawling around like a giant spider. He carefully pries apart Greg and John’s sleeping limbs and painstakingly inserts himself, inch by inch, to his usual spot between them, stopping every few seconds when either of them stirs to make sure they stay asleep.

Sherlock expects he’ll lie awake for a long time tonight, remembering John’s face in the fog, John’s laugh in the golf-cart, Greg’s eyes when he realized they’d come all that way just to sleep with him for a night.

But heavy, warm limbs surround him, two breathing chests, and Sherlock is asleep before he can even go over his training schedule for the next day.

In his dreams, Greg holds him close, murmuring, “ _Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait pour vous mériter?_ ” into his skin. 

In his dreams, John’s breath tickles Sherlock’s ear as he sprints through the Village, John’s warm chest pressed into his back, and fresh snow on his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frenchy French:  
> Je suis là : I'm here  
> Il est là : He is here  
> bonne nuit : goodnight  
> Hé ! Vous là ! Arrêtez tout de suite! Qu’est ce que vous faites? : Hey! You there! Stop now! What are you doing?  
> Vous ne pouvez pas : You cannot  
> Je vous ai dit d’attendre. C’est une zone sécurisée. Vous n’avez pas l’autorisation de -- : I said wait. This is a secured area. You are not allowed to --  
> Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait pour vous mériter ? : what did I do to deserve you (both) ?
> 
> I continue to be amazed by the warmth you all show this story. Your comments are adored. All my thanks <3
> 
> (Also, you might appreciate the fact that when I went back to edit this chapter after my major-writing day, I realized that instead of writing "Sherlock's eyes drift to the faint dark marks across his ribs" I had actually written "Sherlock's eyes drift to the faint Dark Marks across his ribs." Honestly, it will be incredible if I make it through this whole fic without naming a single character Neville, or changing John's tattoo from Orion to the Draco constellation. I make no promises.)
> 
>  
> 
> Next time: It's John's time in the spotlight. John's media circus, and John's prelims, and John's chance at moving on to the finals. John thinks he would much rather be battling enemy fire from an exploding helicopter.


	12. Come To

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! 
> 
> I'm so sorry for the extra long delay with this fic. I know that this is precisely the reason why people stay far away from WIPs, and I don't blame you. I took some time off to finish editing something not-fic-related. But now that that's mainly finished, I can focus my writing energies back here with my favorite skiers :)
> 
> Thanks for the patience and love for this story, and I hope you enjoy the update! The chapter after this is already mostly written, too. So an update shouldn't be too long. Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> Listen to "Come To" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov6pWi05C3w)

_19 February 2019; 6:45 am_

 

Received: _Greg is anxious for your race and it’s boring. Relieve me. Tell me I’m an incorrigible prick._

Received: _J, how are you? How are you feeling? Ça va?_

Received: _And don’t let my wording limit you in terms of the insult. Please feel free to use your military-inspired imagination. You can call me whatever you want. Anything at all. I will gladly hear it as long as it’s not a) drenched in concern or b) in French._

Received: _You are prepared for this. You have worked so hard. Did you sleep well? Eat le petit-déjeuner? I know we did not get to see you yesterday after the training . . ._

Received: _John? You have precisely three minutes to text me something back before I murder Greg Lestrade. Correction: two minutes._

Received: _You are awake, ouais? You should be at the center preparing your gear, je pense. Just let me know that you are there. S’il te plait._

Received: _Do you want to deal with the court case from this murder? Turning the Village into a crime scene? Police swarming the area? The trial and inevitable prison sentence?_

Received: _I have spoken with the Biathlon Centre and they say you are checked in. You will do great. This is just a prelim. I have the full faith in you._

Received: _They would probably cancel your prelim today if I murdered Greg Lestrade in cold blood. It would be highly inconvenient for you. Think of all the wasted time you spent in California when we could’ve been listening to Greg worry about you together, in the same country, naked in bed?_

Received: _John, are you receiving these? I just want you to know I am thinking of your race. We both are. S was worried for you last night. I woke up to him reading your old news articles on his phone . . . Maybe the reception is not good for you now?_

Received: _John, I know you are receiving these. It is scientifically impossible that you are not receiving them. I want you to know that I’m very displeased at your silence. I feel terribly abandoned. And Greg’s making me eat almond butter on my toast. Don’t you owe me one for carrying you to safety from security the other night?_

Received: _Call us before you head to the course, oui? We will be in the front area, near the coaches. We want to give you the good luck, if you can meet us. S is even eating breakfast for you._

Received: _I hope you know how selfish you’re being. I know you’re stretching and cleaning your guns right now and that your mobile is sitting directly beside you face up. I know you have it set to vibrate. I know that you still do not know how to turn the vibrate off. You are perfectly aware of every one of these texts._

Received: _I guess you are busy. Glad you are there and preparing. Wish we had time for a call, but . . . I guess I cannot judge for having the phone off before a race, non?_

Received: _John Watson. You will successfully complete this race. Do NOT be an idiot and think otherwise._

Received: _Ski swift, mon coeur._

Received: _I hope you’re proud of yourself, knowing you are directly complicit in the Lestrade Murder, 2018 -- as it will come to be called. I can see the headline now: Controversial Alpine Skier S. Holmes Murders Coach Over Text Dispute; Body Never Recovered. Congratulations on your accessory charge._

Received: _It is my dream to see you in your Olympics. You are knowing that, right? I know that things have been . . . busy. With S’s training. But I am here for you, too. You know this?_

Received: _Obviously, they would never find the body. I won’t even tell you where I plan to hide it. You show everything on your face. You’d give me up, and I’d go to jail. Your sex life would plummet since Greg would never let you order him around like you do to me. You’d be miserable. Do you understand, Group Captain? Miserable._

Received: _You came back to me, and I get to watch you ski. It is my greatest miracle._

Received: _Also, I love you. To Orion and back._

Received: _S is emotional, you know. He misses you. We both do._

Received: _I am NOT emotional. My previous ill-advised and out-of-character text will self destruct in five, four, three . . ._

A door slams, and John looks up from the last thirty-odd minutes of texts blowing up his phone in rapid succession to see a group of his competitors filing in the locker room, each of them giving him a brief nod.

John’s due to be out on the course in five minutes to receive his official time-trials placement and begin warming up while he waits his turn. Then he will ski three laps of the course and shoot five targets in three shooting rounds. Then his skis will cross the finish line, and he will receive an official time all in good, predictable order. 

He vaguely wants to throw up.

“Watson.”

John looks up to see Walter coming into the room, holding his bag on his lap as he navigates his wheelchair through the locker room benches. He’s a German athlete John had met at shooting practice a week before—they’d shared a lane, and John had ended up owing him a handful of money after Walter out-rifled him twenty-five shots to twenty-three.

But still, the odd, detached resignation that’s been stewing under John’s skin all morning makes it so he can barely muster the energy to raise a hand in greeting back. Even the other ex-military blokes who stride in with the next wave of athletes—the ones John’s shared a few moments of dark humor with over the previous week of pre-race training—don’t get more than a curt nod.

They seem to understand, though. Everything feels different now that it’s finally race day. Even the air feels sharper, colder somehow—vibrating the way the helicopter blades used to slice through like deadly ice right before take-off, burning against John’s skin and numbing his lips. Resonating in his bones. 

The empty locker room benches slowly fill with gear bags and towels as more and more athletes arrive to go through their various preparations for the race—some using chairs, some prosthetics, and some missing an arm. Nobody speaks beyond a brief hello, and the clicks of various limbs, skis, and guns fill the air the way the grasshoppers used to hiss together in the desert after sundown, filling the sky with whispering noise. 

John picks up his gun and starts to check it for the eighth time that morning, his fingers automatically going through his pre-race checks while his mind wanders . . .

The Village has become markedly emptier and calm in the days since the regular Olympics ended and the Paralympics officially began—with teams leaving in droves, and all but the major news crews packing up, and the visitors staying on for the weather-delayed Alpine Finals taking the opportunity to explore nearby Gangneung on the coast. And yet John’s life still feels like it’s teetering in a fragile, precarious balance. He’d never expected, not in a million years, that he would be preparing for his own race while the fate of Sherlock’s Gold still hung in the balance—his place on the Super-G podium still unknown. 

When John had imagined this moment—the morning of his prelims spent preparing his gear, warming up his body—he’d expected it to feel just like any other race, no great weight on his shoulders. The real work—the work of Sherlock’s Gold—would have already been done, and Greg and Sherlock would both be relaxed, and they could all treat John’s race as a day off, of sorts. A victory lap. An excuse to spend the day in the sunshine and fresh air.

But now, the first medal ceremony among the three of them for these Olympics suddenly hangs on _him_. And John finds that he actually _wants_ it, more than he even wanted to walk again back in the hospital. 

He wants to be an Olympian, to dominate, to fight, to fucking _win_ , and it’s so far removed from the fog-like apathy he’s had since first setting foot in the Village a week and a half ago that he feels he doesn’t even know why he went to California anymore. Why he first picked back up a pair of skis after that PT session. Why he’s sitting on this locker room bench.

He reaches down and adjusts the tension on the joints of his walking leg—the one Sherlock and Greg helped pay for a year ago when he admitted that his old one left sores on his skin—and he thinks of them walking around somewhere in the Village now on pins and needles, taking time away from their preparations to text John ridiculous things about how they’re _proud_ of him just for swishing around in the snow. Firing a fake gun.

He _misses_ them, wants to pick up his phone and call them, crading it to his ear just to hear them breathe . . .

And yet, the guilt overwhelms him, gnawing at his stomach. 

He pictures, for the countless time, what he’ll look like when he embarrasses himself later this morning. When he has a panic attack, or comes in last, or quits halfway through the race when he forgets how to stand-ski with the prosthetic. And he wonders whether Greg or Sherlock would ever own up to knowing the Great Britain Para-biathlete that everyone’s carefully trying not to pity too much. If they would admit to kissing him, holding his naked body in bed at night. If they would even want him after.

And Christ, he doesn’t even want to win the medal for them, if he’s honest. 

He wants . . . he wants to win it just to feel the weight of it around his own neck, finally heavier than the weight of his prosthetic pulling against his thigh. He wants to stand at attention, his shoulders back, and hear the national anthem playing from the podium, drowning out James Sholto’s screams over the radio from his fall—the ones John hears on the nights he wakes up dripping with sweat, unable to go back to sleep, or be touched.

John shakes his head. He’ll _never_ win if he keeps thinking ridiculous things like that—the RAF taught him that much at least.

He quietly checks the laces on his snow boots, then pins on his bib to his racing suit. He thinks about _anything_ but fire, or blood, or the look on Greg’s face after he told him about vatican cameos that night in his room, or the fact that nobody will even give a shit if John wins a medal, because practically nobody’s still there to see—the grandstands sitting half-empty on the other side of the doors.

It would be one-tenth of the fanfare Greg experiences just showing his face in the Village. One-one-hundredth of what Sherlock gets just walking down the street.

The three of them had gone into the city on the night of the Paralympics Opening Ceremony. Greg had insisted they actually leave the Village to try and relax, and Sherlock had argued with him about it for nearly two hours before John had physically dragged him up from Greg’s bed, slammed him into the wall, and bit his soft, pale neck just to get him to shut his mouth. Hissed into Sherlock’s ear that he _would_ be doing what Greg wanted, no bloody questions asked.

Only, John had regretted it not five minutes in when they queued to be seated at what they’d thought would be a suitably out-of-the-way restaurant off one of the main drags, and a swarm of Olympics paparazzi and athlete-watchers had descended on them like angry bees, jostling for the best shot of Sherlock Holmes during his debilitating, unfair, and downright _cruel_ sixteen-day wait for his chance at Gold. 

It had been like a bucket of ice water being splashed into John’s face. He’d stepped back, instantly losing himself in the crowd, and watched as the scene carried on as if that odd, limping third man had never been there next to Holmes and Lestrade. 

And it wasn’t like they were never recognized back home—quite the opposite sometimes, in fact. But the eyes of the Olympics was another thing entirely, and John had swallowed a wave of bitterness and nausea at the thought that it would cling to Sherlock and Greg for another year or two, until everyone moved on and forgot all about terms like Super-G and Alpine until the next Olympics came around two years after that.

He’d stood there, feeling pathetic and immature, almost foolish, as he’d grit his teeth and wondered whether they would ever have a normal dinner out in London or France ever again. Whether this was his life now—being the third man whose hand or half-face was constantly cropped out of precious photos of Olympic Champion Power Duo Holmes and Lestrade. 

One tourist had even asked John to snap her picture for her using her phone, since she’d been even shorter than he was, too lost in the crowd to reach for her shot.

Greg had had that same look of quiet surprise on his face, like uncomfortable awe.

And Sherlock . . . Sherlock had just looked straight at John through the sea of phones and flashes and bodies, with a look that had been so devastating, so raw, stripping him naked and blanketing him with pity, that John still can’t stand to—

“Ready, Watson?”

John looks up when the wheels of Walter’s chair come into view. 

He takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

“Thought maybe you were going to compete in the grandma Olympics instead. See how long you can sit on your ass.”

John picks up his gear back forcefully, so that it knocks Walter’s shoulder. “Har har.”

He’s spent a good few hours trading stories and barbs with Walter and a few other soldiers over the last week, and the ease of it—being around other soldiers again, the way they can talk to each other, and read between the lines—it’s been like scratching an itch John has been quietly suffering for five years.

And John’s fairly certain Sherlock and Greg think he hasn’t spoken to a single other athlete this entire Olympics. That he hasn’t made any friends in the Para housing, or struck up conversation at the Biathlon track. That John would have absolutely nothing to say to anyone who wasn’t named Sherlock Holmes or Greg Lestrade.

He’s certain of that—almost as much as he’s _uncertain_ why he hasn’t just casually brought up the fact that he’s made a friend or two. That it feels nice in a way John can’t put into words to tell another soldier how he hates the bloody cold, or that he almost died, or that he thinks the Great Britain Para uniforms for the Opening Ceremony looked like shit.

It probably has something to do with the way Greg looks like he’s going to fall over every time John brings up the war. The way Sherlock’s eyes shrink and blacken like tiny, fragile dots . . .

John makes the final adjustments to his racing prosthesis in his bag as Walter leads the way out the door, trying not to wince at the weakness weighing down his shoulder, locking the joint. He slips his phone into his pocket without checking for any new texts.

Walter eyes his leg. “I can’t believe they approved that thing for you to stand-ski. Seems like it makes your life a hell of a lot harder.”

John tilts his head as they join the line of other biathletes down the hall leading out to the stadium. 

“I regretted it for the first few months, but once I got the hang of it, it feels better. I could never get used to the monoski—it put too much strain on my shoulder.”

“What, you had to one-up the rest of us and have two things blasted off you? What’s missing up there?”

“My soul, for one. And about half the ligaments I need.”

Walter scoffs. “Show-off. You’ll get all the media sympathy. You’ll be their darling. It’s unfair.”

John holds the door open for Walter to navigate through with his snow-adapted wheelchair. “I could always toss you into the nearest fire. That’s what worked for me. Then we could share the television spotlights. Split the ad deals.”

“I’ll fucking hold you to that promise, you—” 

But Walter is cut off by a gloved hand appearing from nowhere, wrapping around John’s arm and pulling him to the side of the flow, almost causing him to fall.

“John Watson!”

John yanks his arm back on impulse, gearing up for a fight, but the hand returns, gentler this time.

“John, request for an interview? NBC-International?”

John reels, trying to focus on the smiling NBC interviewer and the bright light of the camera suddenly pointed at his face. The microphone shoved under his nose.

“I . . . I have to be . . . there isn’t time—”

“You’re up thirty-first in trials—that’s the third and final grouping. There’s time.”

The woman beams at him, edging closer and closer until John has to take a step back in the snow. He turns back to Walter and shrugs apologetically, knowing full well that they’re right—he has at least an hour before he even needs to start his second warm-up of the morning and re-check his gear.

Walter rolls his eyes and waves with one hand as he turns his chair around. “Alright, now. Don’t cry too much. Be sure to tell them something heartbreaking about me—I got dumped, I was an orphan—”

“Your wife and parents are literally waving at you right now from the stands.”

Walter winks. “I have to hold my own against your sob story, though, ya?”

And then he’s gone, disappearing into the sea of country flags dotting the stands and the wave of athletes and coaches making their way to the pavilion by the start. John fights against the temptation to call Walter back and beg him to do the interview with him, and instead turns to the interviewer, dipping his face from the glaring light of the camera.

“Sonya Westley,” she declares, sticking out her gloved hand in expensive, fitted leather.

John shakes it and awkwardly grins, and she adds, “Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.”

He nearly laughs. He feels he didn’t quite have a choice with the way she’d yanked him from the rest of the athletes. He notices with a building sense of hot embarrassment that no other athletes have been pulled aside for interviews, from any country or by any other news station. 

It’s just him.

But then pride, fleeting and hesitant, starts to burn in his chest. Maybe they’d been scouting him during his practice runs and have pegged him as a contender. Maybe they see him as the unexpected underdog and are pinning their bets on him to place on the podium. Maybe he’d impressed someone higher up at the practice shooting range the night before . . .

“Of course,” he says. Then, a beat too late. “It’s my pleasure.”

She beams and adjusts her NBC-logo beanie over what looks to be long, elegantly curled black hair. 

“Tell me, John,” she says, and John tries not to flinch at the way the cameraman zooms in, the over-familiarity of her body language and voice, the roar of the crowd behind him as the first line-up of time trial competitors are announced. “How are you feeling this morning for your preliminary race? The time trials?”

He bites the inside of his cheek and shuffles his foot in the snow. He hasn’t had to give an interview since they filmed his spotlight in California, and before that it had been . . . well, it had been way back when he was briefly on the news after his crash. His heart starts to pound, and his neck prickles with sweat.

_John Watson,_ he thinks, _your body is currently maintaining an internal temperature of around thirty-seven degrees . . ._

“Er, well, you know.” He shrugs. “It’s good weather. It’s a good course. I feel honored to compete with the other athletes here. They all deserve it.”

She gives him an odd half-smile, almost indulgent—an inside joke. “Yes, but of course, you’re the _war hero_ in our midst. Do you feel your time in the Royal Air Force has prepared you better for tense moments such as these? The nerves before a race? The drive to win? The focus needed?”

Something in his chest snaps and wilts. His body deflates.

Sonya Westley didn’t yank him out of the crowd because of his promise, or his athleticism, or his gold-medal-chances. 

She’d just been told by someone in an ear piece that his was the worst story—he was the soldier from the crash, the bloodied mess they found in the sand, clinging to life—and she’d jumped.

He swallows. _You are on the ground. You are not wearing an RAF uniform . . ._

“I’m far from the only ex-military here,” he says in an overly-casual voice. “I think if that were all that was necessary to have the drive to win, we’d all win the Gold. We’re all on the same mountain, so to speak.”

“Yes, but some would say you’ve had the steepest mountain to climb. We can’t forget the story of how you got here to this point. Your remarkable survival and recovery, not only to walk again, but to excel in your sport.”

“Er . . . I guess—”

“How does it feel? Your journey from near-death five years ago, to now—moments before your Olympics debut?”

Her white teeth mock him. John clenches his fist and tries to breathe deeply through the hot bubble of anger starting to surge in his stomach, pressing against his ribs. 

“I feel grateful to be alive, yes, but . . . this is about today, not five years ago. And all of us have earned the same right to be here. Succeeded at the same trials.”

“The viewers at home have all seen the incredibly hard work you put in in California, that’s true. What an _inspiring_ piece. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt like an onion had been cut in the room.”

“It’s not . . . it wasn’t meant to be—”

“And speaking of California, is that coach here with you today? Did he travel with you?”

John sways side to side, fighting with his eyes not to watch the first time-trials group starting to warm up with laps around the course. 

“Er, no. He . . . he isn’t my coach year-round. It was just for that bit of training, once I knew I’d qualified for Pyeongchang. I’m . . . I’m just here on my own.”

She gives a dramatic frown mixed with a sympathetic moan. “We all know how difficult it can be to find good coaching, especially for such a . . . specific sport, as Paralympic Biathlon. But I doubt you’re _fully_ on your own, though. Who’s here in the stands for you?”

Almost magically, John’s phone starts to vibrate in his pocket. He knows full-well that it’s either Sherlock or Greg trying to get a hold of him before he starts preparing for his race, and a wave of shame rushes through him that he never answered their texts before. That he’d stared at his phone lighting up in the locker room as it was from some completely other life, some separate universe. Not his own.

He clears his throat and doesn’t let himself scan the half-full grandstands for silver hair, or a head of curls. 

“I have some . . . friends here,” he says. “Skiing friends to wish me well.”

She frowns again. “Family? A special lady?”

John half-smiles as his heart does a painful flip in his chest. “Just friends.”

Sonya lets it go as the cameraman holds up two fingers, presumably giving her the remaining time. She glances down at his legs with raised brows, and John feels a fiery burn through his right leg as his brain tries to scrunch his prosthetic toes in his boot.

“We’ve got time for one more question here—can you tell us more about your decision to stand-ski? We understand an athlete stand-skiing using a lower limb prosthetic is actually unprecedented for this event at the Paralympic level.”

John stares at her. “Is it really?”

She stares right back, an odd look in her eyes. “Yes. Yes it is . . . I would have expected you to be prouder of this achievement, I’ll admit!”

The cameraman holds up one finger. The awkwardness seeps through the air, wrapping around John’s skin.

He laughs, a beat too late. “Wow, I . . . I was so caught up in the race, I guess I just didn’t stop to think that this hadn’t been done before.”

“It’s Olym—Paralympic history!” Sonya stutters. 

“So it is.”

“Ten,” the cameraman says under his breath.

Sonya’s smile blasts across her face once more, and she reaches out a hand.

“Well, our deepest wishes for a strong time-trial for you today,” she says. 

“Th-thanks. Thank you.”

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again tomorrow for an invigorating and _inspiring_ Paralympic Biathlon Final race.”

“Yes I—I hope so . . .”

She beams at the camera, still holding John’s hand in a stale grip. 

 

“We’re signing off with John Watson, for team Great Britain. On behalf of NBC-International, we hope that any young amputee skiers at home can see the hope in this incredible athlete’s drive and bravery. You truly _can_ fight back and beat the odds. You can achieve your dreams.” She turns to him. “John, congratulations on your debut.”

John grits his teeth against the sensation that she’s just congratulated him for simply standing on his own two feet. He forces a quick, painful nod, then slips his fingers from hers the moment the cameraman points the camera away. He’s walking away before he can even tell whether Sonya is still speaking to him, fighting his way along the sidelines toward the athletes’ pavilion near the start line.

He has the strong, terrifying urge to snap one of his skis in half. Or set his gun off into the sky. Or find the nearest helicopter, leap into it, and fly straight up, up and up . . .

As he walks, other athletes are also making their way along the base of the grandstands, squinting with their hands over their eyes into the morning sun hovering over the crowds. They’re meeting up with significant others to kiss over the railing, hugging their kids, waving at parents and friends all holding up posters or country flags in enthusiastic support.

John’s phone buzzes again in his pocket with a call. Remembering his wave of guilt from before, he tears off one glove and fishes it out. He doesn’t check who it is before he answers, but his stomach does a complicated flip when he’s halfway through his greeting and remembers that it could actually be James Sholto, calling him again.

“Hey, sorry about this morning. I didn’t—”

“ _Look up_ ,” Sherlock’s crisp voice says, oddly flat. “ _Eleven o’clock_.”

John stops in his tracks and looks up, scanning the crowd.

“I don’t—”

“ _Eleven-fifteen. Closer to eleven-eighteen, to be exact._ ”

John rolls his eyes when he does, in fact, minorly shift his gaze to the right and finally catches sight of Greg, who’s standing waving his hands in the air from the front row of the grandstands two sections down. 

Something tightens behind his ribs as he registers the huge smile on Greg’s face, as if he’s actually somehow excited to be here when he’s already stood on a bloody Gold medal podium four times before, to crowds ten times this size. 

Sherlock’s practically in disguise still sitting beside him with his sunglasses on, the hood of his black ski jacket pulled up over his head, and a muffler covering half his face. Greg is, predictably, wearing hardly any winter clothing at all, and his hair shines like silver fire in the bright sun above. 

Half the people around them are trying, very unsuccessfully, not to take secret photos and stare.

John pockets his phone, guiltily registering that they’ve sent him even more unread texts since the locker room, and tries to keep a calm, unaffected expression on his face. His shoulder is already starting to ache from carrying his gear bag, and the icy wind has swept under his outerwear and his racing suit beneath, chilling his skin with shivers.

“You’re here,” John says, stupidly, when he steps up to the railing. Greg rushes to him, while Sherlock calmly stands and follows, slowly pulling the sunglasses off his face.

“Obviously . . .”

Greg frowns. “You thought that we would not come? We texted you that we would.”

John grips the railing so he won’t reach over and touch their hands, grasp their bodies and pull them into himself to feel warm again—safe in their arms.

“I . . . I guess I wasn’t sure if you weren’t just wishing me luck.” When Greg looks stricken, he quickly adds, “I would have understood. It’s only the prelims.”

“You were at _my_ preliminaries,” Sherlock cuts in.

Greg sighs. “ _Ouais_ , and how could either of us ever forget that, eh?” Then he turns back to John, and John hates himself for the fact that Greg looks quietly, almost unbearably sad. “Did you not see our texts? We were trying to reach you all morning . . .”

Sherlock’s eyes are on him, and John instantly knows that Sherlock understands everything—knows that John saw every text, read them all, and then couldn’t get himself to respond.

He wants to ask Sherlock to explain to him why he did it, because even he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how he could be at the Olympics, what should presumably be the proudest day of his life, and yet he thinks he felt prouder the first time he successfully took off solo in a fighter jet, back when he was twenty. The first time he walked again in hospital, gripping the bars with the nurse rolling before him on a stool, holding his waist.

He doesn’t understand why he never really wanted to win Gold before, but now that Sherlock Holmes is still Gold-less, he wants it desperately. More than breathing.

But Sherlock doesn’t answer any of John’s internal questions for him. He keeps his mouth uncharacteristically shut, and John realizes that neither Sherlock nor Greg will break this silence until he does.

He rubs the back of his neck, and he registers the moment Greg realizes what he’s about to say—the way his eyes fall. 

“I . . . I saw them. Your texts. I don’t know why . . . I felt like I needed to focus. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

Silence looms for a heavy beat, then Greg’s palm rests hesitantly on top of John’s hand. John desperately thanks his past-self for having kept his glove off after hanging up the phone. 

“You do not have to apologize,” Greg whispers, his thumb tentatively stroking John’s skin, as if John will pull away any moment. “I . . . I should not have kept pressing.”

“I’m glad that you did,” John says.

Sherlock stays silent, but moves his hand closer to theirs on the railing, his fingertips reaching closer.

Greg’s eyes are deeply, incredibly brown. “How do you feel?”

John swallows hard, and his heart starts to pound at the thought that the buzzer will go off for his race in less than three hours.

“I . . . alright.” 

Sherlock is just staring at him, his eyes fixed on John’s face, and something in the steady, unchanging gaze loosens John’s tongue. 

“My . . . my shoulder’s a bit sore,” John says. “I must have slept weird on it.” He stares down at their hands. “And I didn’t sleep well.”

Greg sucks in a breath, and John’s stomach drops at the pain in the noise. The empathy threatens to choke him. “You should have called us, J. If you couldn’t sleep. One of us would have come to—”

“Was that Sonya bloody Westley you were talking to earlier instead of us?” Sherlock cuts in.

John hates himself for feeling grateful at the interruption, even as he watches Greg give Sherlock a harsh glare.

John clears his throat. “Er, yeah. She’s . . . she’s something else. She grabbed me out of the line like I was a fish on a hook.”

Sherlock scoffs. “She’s merciless. I could almost respect her tenacity in nabbing you for her story, if it wasn’t _you_ specifically she was after.”

“Sherlock,” Greg sighs, “Do not talk of John as if he’s an object—”

“How does it feel to be the man with the most tragic story here?”

“Sherlock!”

“An exclusive interview with Sonya Westley just minutes before your time trials means you’ve certainly won that accolade.”

John shakes his head and laughs at him, warmth fluttering in his ribs, and the tension eases as Greg realizes John isn’t angry, and relaxes too.

“You’re ridiculous,” John whispers. 

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitches into an almost-smile. Sunlight illuminates one of his curls peeking out of his beanie in a golden beam, and John wants to catch the little ringlet on his fingertip. Hold it to his lips.

Slowly, carefully, hidden from the rest of the grandstands by their bodies, Sherlock’s hand joins John’s and Greg’s, all of them touching. It makes something burn though John’s imaginary right leg and pulse through his burned shoulder. Only, it isn’t pain. It isn’t that familiar, prickling fire like nails. Instead, it feels like . . . like the muscles beneath finally unclenching. Like every part of John’s body is connected, the metal and the burned tissue and the real bones. Like he’s finally—

John clears his throat and glances at Greg, who still looks concerned, and mildly miffed at Sherlock, but is trying to hide it.

“Really, though,” John says, feeling ridiculous even as he says it, “The tragic story would be if I were here alone. Which . . . which I’m not.”

And impossibly—because he has won Olympic medals, experienced far greater emotions than this—Greg’s eyes cover over with water. 

“ _Je suis fier de toi, J,_ ” he whispers, nearly lost in the roar of the crowd—the hissing wind, and the noisemakers, and the first time trial kicking off behind them.

John blinks at him, lost for words. Greg’s never told him that before, not in so many words, and John finds his heart inexplicably aching at the fact that Greg didn’t translate it for him into English, as if he just spoke his raw soul, and deemed John deserving to hear.

Sherlock audibly swallows in the heavy pause, and he suddenly looks very young, almost afraid. “John,” he says, in a deep, wavering voice. “John, you know that I . . . that I love—”

Someone suddenly pushes John from the left, and he staggers sideways, nearly losing his balance. Their hands all whip apart.

“Ah, sorry!” someone calls in accented English. 

John looks over, startled, to see another athlete in Ukrainian ski suit colors lifting a hand to apologize. John haphazardly grins and nods he’s okay, then watches as the man uses his one arm to lift himself on the railing and share a deep, wet kiss with the woman leaning down on the other side. She grabs handfuls of his suit, whispering into his mouth.

All at once, John realizes that he, Sherlock, and Greg are all staring. 

The three of them shift their gazes away in awkward unison, all clearing their throats. John’s neck feels hot, like he can’t breathe. He looks back to Sherlock and Greg, who are both not quite meeting his gaze. Their silence feels deafening.

“Well,” John eventually says, taking a step back, “I should . . .”

“ _D’accord._ ” Greg’s hands are awkwardly twisting together. “We will be here, J.”

Sherlock’s arms are crossed over his chest as if he’s freezing cold. He gives John a long, unreadable look. 

“We’re here, John.”

For one blinding, impossible second, John thinks about gripping the railing with both hands. Thinks about hurling himself over, wrapping his arms around them both, kissing them on the mouth. Thinks about begging them to hold him, to tell him that he could win this, to grip handfuls of his suit and whisper into his mouth that he’s theirs and loved and alive . . .

Cameras flash behind him as the first time trial reaches the first shooting stage. 

He takes a step back. 

“Thank you,” John says, his voice choked with emotion.

Greg still looks like he’s about to cry, and Sherlock’s mouth is half-open, on the verge of more words. It looks wrong—watching the two biggest names in Alpine skiing stand in the middle of the half-empty Paralympic grandstands looking sad and lost. John can’t look at it for another second.

“Well,” he says, taking a step back.

“Shoot steady,” Greg says in a rush.

“Don’t let your leg fall off,” Sherlock adds.

But John can’t find it in himself to say anything back. He lifts his gear bag carefully so that Sherlock won’t notice him wince, shoots them a forced smile and nod, then walks away.

 

\--

 

Two and a half hours later, John’s skis scoot, inch by inch, along the red line spray painted into the snow. And he tries to convince himself that any of this is real.

He’s been trying to convince himself this is real since he officially took off his warm-up gear fifteen minutes ago when his time trials group was given their warning to prepare. Since he waxed his skis and checked his gun and ammo for the last time, strapping it tightly across his back. Since he triple-checked his prosthetic, gave his name and number to the course official, and was given a place in line, where he squatted and shifted on his feet in the snow, wondering why _this_ , some silly race, was making him so nervous he felt like his meager breakfast was sitting at the bottom of his throat.

But, then again, it isn’t just some silly race.

“ _Sinsa sugnyeo yeoleobun . . . Mesdames et messieurs . . . Ladies and gentlemen_ ,” the announcements boom over the crackling loudspeakers, vibrating across the fresh snow.

The athlete behind John in line clicks his poles against his skis in an irritating rhythm as they wait. John adjusts his goggles on his face, minutely tightens and stretches his lycra hood over his ears and hair, tucking everything away. He catches sight of himself in the reflection of a passing athlete’s goggles and doesn’t even recognize the Great Britain-flag-covered alien staring back at him. 

He feels oddly ridiculous, almost embarrassed, at the passing thought of any of his squadron seeing him now—playing dress up in the snow just to race around and shoot a fake pellet gun and win a useless medal—as if people didn’t die before his eyes in the sand, faces twisted with terror. As if John’s prosthesis glinting in the harsh sun—the metal with two sets of initials engraved behind the knee, and a black skull painted into the joint—is simply an inspiring Paralympic _first_ , not a reminder that John once held his femur in his hands, cradling it to his chest, dripping with hot blood.

“ _The third and final grouping for the Paralympic Biathlon time trials—Standing Class—will begin in sixty seconds._ ”

Something roars through his stomach, flashing up his spine. He bounces up and down on his left foot just to feel the weight of the snow beneath him, the comforting flap of his gun slung across his back. Tension settles over the line like a thick blanket, muffling all sound like a disorienting, slow-motion dream.

He can only hear his own breath like a howling, ghostlike whisper through the silence. Can only feel the thumping beat of his own blood to keep the time. Flashes from the stands appear like shooting stars in his peripheral vision through his goggles. Flags like a field of wildflowers, waving in a breeze. And somewhere out there, John knows, a beanie over soft curls, and sun-kissed silver hair . . .

“Marks,” says a voice disconcertingly close to him.

John blinks, and the world explodes back into noise and rhythm and focus, and he belatedly realizes that the skier before him has just taken off, soaring into the snow in a blur of skis and poles and the Russian flag. 

Which means that John has only thirty seconds before he pushes off and tries to convince the entire world that he’s alive, that he can still ski, that he deserves to be an Olympian, that he can actually bloody fucking _win_ , and he realizes he forgot how to suck air into his lungs, and he forgot how to ski, and how to shoot, and he forgot to tell his heart to keep pumping so he doesn’t pass out—

A beautifully familiar, whirring hum suddenly echoes above him, and John flings his head back to look up into the sky. 

His mouth falls open.

If he believed in God at all, even the tiniest bit, he would think it was a sign sent from above. Only, God hadn’t said jack shit to him when he was dying in the sand, only Orion had noticed him there, so John comes to the only other available conclusion: that this is one hell of a fucking coincidence. And he has no idea what it means.

The old RAF Hawk T-1 trainer jet cuts through the piercing skies with a roar. John doesn’t even have to squint to check: he would know that plane anywhere. 

It was the first plane he had ever taken off in; the first engine he’d ever heard purr across an airfield, beckoning him closer. It was the first plane he’d watched a live sunrise from over the desert. The plane he’d flown Wing Commander James Sholto in to earn his promotion. The plane he’d sat in alone to weep in the middle of the night at the base after hearing word that one of the pilots from his recruit class—a woman who’d shown him pictures of her two-year old only a week before—had died.

And now it’s here, flying overhead for no discernible reason at all, her red, white and blue stripes in brilliant contrast to the sleek, black body, casting a shadow across the snow before soaring toward the distant peaks.

“Ten . . . nine . . .”

John can’t believe that only a handful of seconds have passed as the course attendant counts him down to his start time, and as the light before him flashes yellow. 

In five seconds, it will turn green.

And just like that, calm settles over John’s body. His heart slows down to a normal rhythm, and his shoulders relax. His jaw unclenches. Time goes backwards. Stops moving at all.

He feels his body effortlessly slip into a mode it’s gone into countless times before, but all of them years ago, back in another universe and another life . . . 

It’s the mode in those final, breathtaking seconds right before takeoff, when the tip of the plane’s wheels are still clinging to land, resisting the thrust of the air, saying goodbye. It’s the mode when the pad of his fingertip settles on a trigger, and he takes a deep breath, and prepares to pull.

It’s the mode John went into after Sherlock Holmes pushed him off the side of the mountain. The mode when Greg Lestrade, his hair still brown, put his shaking hand on John’s shoulder when they were alone out in the trees, and he’d whispered, nervously, “ _J, I . . . you are a friend to me. I never thought I would . . . but I have to tell you that I am . . . ah, putain. Can I kiss you?”_

And John had closed his eyes, and stepped forward on two legs of muscle and bone as he inhaled the snow and pine, and he’d kissed the boy whose shirtless poster he once kept hidden on the inside of his closet door at his third foster home.

The light turns green. The buzzer sounds. Someone’s hands slap his back.

And when John pushes off for his first sprinting strides of his Winter Olympics, barreling across the smooth snow with his eyes fixed on the distant white, the air rushing through his ears . . .

It feels like flying. It feels like the morning he woke up wrapped in four other arms, and two men whispering to him, asking him if he would move in with them. To call his home their home.

Sweat already pours down John’s back under his suit by the time he digs his poles into the second incline of the course. His lungs are filled with fire, bursting against his ribs as they gasp for thin slices of air, already pushing his body to the point where he sees grey at the edges of his vision, and he can’t feel any of his limbs.

Christ, but the wind against his cheeks, the way his right leg is beautifully conforming to the contours of the ruts in the snow, the way his poles strike the ice and reverberate through his shoulders, the way the ice tastes in his mouth, mixed with snowflakes and sweat . . .

He’s long lost track of time. The faces of coaches along the sidelines have blurred into the background, melding with the trees and fencing and snow. He can’t see the competitor up ahead anymore, lost to the twists and turns of the looping course, and he can’t even hear the hiss and slide of skis from his competitor behind him.

It’s why he’s always _loathed_ time trials, where the athletes are set off one by one, thirty seconds apart. It feels pointless to push himself as fast as he can go without someone else breathing down his neck. Without the adrenaline of another person’s skis nearly tripping his own, fighting with gnashing teeth, tooth and nail for that extra inch—

He squats on his screaming thighs, trusting the joint on his right leg to work smoothly and hold his weight, and he coasts around the bend to complete his first of three laps, coming back in view of the stadium and grandstands.

From far off, he can hear the screaming—the roaring cheers from the crowd—almost as if he’s taken out headphones with the music still playing. The professional, crisp purr of the announcers snaps over the crowd, and flashing lights threaten to distract him, and the giant HD screen glitters like a thousand suns, reflecting the snow.

John heaves himself along, stroke by stroke, his arms flying up with his poles, slamming down into the earth and pulling him forward with a gasping grunt for each stride. His gun slaps against his spine in a steady rhythm to his breathing. 

And he hasn’t even needed to remind himself that he is John Watson, and that his body is currently maintaining an internal temperature of around thirty-seven degrees, because . . .

He’s standing upright. And he’s skiing. And his body feels wonderfully, breathtakingly warm.

And that’s precisely the moment when John glances up, catches sight of the timing screen, and pales.

He has somehow just skied three-point-eight seconds faster than he needed to even claim the _last_ qualifying place. He’s mere tenths of a second behind his PR for the course. And he doesn’t even feel exhausted, yet. Still feels strength hovering in his muscles, waiting to be used . . .

The calm is banished from his body, then, as John grits his teeth. Something like a snarling wave of fire rushes through his body. 

This is _more_ than just proving to himself that he is still the same John Watson as the John with two legs. More than proving that his training in California was worth the time, loneliness, and money. More than the surging stands, or making Paralympic history just by skiing standing up, or having something impressive to show for himself beyond simply learning to walk again.

And John doesn’t care if it’s the fucking time trials in the Paralympics that nobody could care less about. He doesn’t care if he could miss every target at this point and still qualify, or ski the rest of the course with his eyes closed.

He’s going to try to fucking win. 

Blindly following the wild points and calls of the course attendants, John comes to a skidding halt by his shooting lane, flushed and alive at his newfound resolve and already reaching back to swing his gun around while his chest heaves, straining his suit. 

There aren’t millions of people watching him on televisions across the world, and there aren’t thousands of people at his back, or announcers calling his every move. There aren’t cameras pointed at his face, his hands, his suit, his gun, his skis. At his leg. 

There’s just him, and the ice cold metal clutched in his hands, and the strong set of his shoulders as he takes his stance, aligning his spine. His eye tracks the target—just a black dot appearing from the billowing swirls of fog and snow. He places a perfectly steady fingertip on the trigger.

“ _Shoot steady,_ ” he hears.

“ _Don’t let your leg fall off,”_ he hears.

John thinks of the desert—the way the sand looked like silk from the cockpit at dawn. He thinks of Sherlock’s careful fingers removing his leg the other night. Greg’s lips pressed to his hair in a simple kiss.

And he fires.

 

\--

 

When John plants his poles with a screaming grunt, clenches his stomach, and blasts himself across the finish line with a terrifying surge of power, he briefly wonders if he didn’t just dream up the whole thing.

He doesn’t think he’s ever actually experienced such a confusing mix of deadly, yanking exhaustion combined with an unprecedented, weightless high. He simultaneously feels that he could spread his arms, take a running leap, and fly without a plane, and that he could close his eyes, let his body collapse, and die right here in the snow.

It’s _intoxicating_.

He feels more alive, as he glides to a stop and gasps for air, his hands on his thighs, than he can ever remember being. Even in the midst of war, even the moment he opened his eyes again in the hospital, even when he orgasmed for the first time with Greg’s cock stuffed in his mouth, and Sherlock’s lips wrapped tight and wet around his own.

Long minutes pass, and John refuses to let himself look anywhere but at the finish line as skier after skier from behind him comes in. 

He _knows_ that he need only look up at the screen to know: theirs is the last time trials group, and the official rankings are being calculated in real time as skiers finish. He knows his name is up there somewhere. Knows, as the skiers dwindle, and the final skier finally crosses the line, that he could put himself out of his misery and just _look_ —

But he calmly drinks his water. He looks out at the snow, at the ruts carved into the earth, at the sharp lines of the shooting lanes, and he thinks that it all looks incomparably beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the Afghanistan night sky, seen from his back. Almost as beautiful as Sherlock’s eyes, or the skin of Greg’s neck.

Almost.

And _that’s_ when a sweeping wave of hands all come to slap John’s back—excited words lobbed at him in every language, yelled over the crowd—and John looks up from his skis, rips off his goggles and blinks away the tears and sweat, and sees that he—John bloody Watson—just came in bloody fucking _third_.

Embarrassingly, John starts to laugh.

He yanks off the hood of his suit and runs his hands through his sweat-matted hair, setting it free. Man after man approaches him to offer him a handshake, a slap on the back, a nod of congratulations before they make their way to the skiers who came second and first.

And it feels ridiculous, it’s just a silly time trial, and he didn’t even win, but . . .

Emotion rises up and lodges in his throat as he bends to unclip his skis, briefly hiding his face from the crowd. He keeps catching glimpses of himself on the giant screen, and cameras swarm around him like a sea of black eyes staring straight through his suit to his skin. He carefully steps out of his left ski, then gratefully takes his gear bag from the young teenage kid who’d volunteered to be a course assistant, who gives John the widest smile he’s ever seen in his life and says, “Congratulations, sir! Your materials, sir!”

John laughs again. He ducks his face to hide his ridiculous, wet grin as he fishes his non-racing foot out of the bag, then falls gratefully onto his backside in the snow off to the sidelines so he can rest from trying to balance on his shaking thighs. He unclips his ski and racing foot from his leg with practiced precision, _almost_ able to forget that thousands of people, and at least three cameras, are watching him openly switch out parts of his body like a machine. 

Then he accepts a hand from Walter, who’s already back in his chair and beaming at him, his head blocking out the sun.

“Third?!” Walter yells at him, hauling John up to his feet from his chair as if John doesn’t weigh a thing. “Fucking third?!”

John grins and wipes the sweat from his face as Walter slaps him in the leg. “Did you enjoy the view of my arse from your place down in tenth?”

Walter shakes his head. “What—were you trying to impress that newswoman from before? Trying to get an ad deal for some . . . some charity for kids who get their legs blown off in plane crashes?”

John stares at him—trying to imagine Walter’s scruffy beard and unkempt hair all crisp and clean in a military uniform, insignias across his chest. But he can only imagine him like this—smiling and sweaty and panting, with melting snow on his face, and sweat staining the front of his suit.

“Congratulations to you, too,” John says, still grinning. “I got glimpses of your race while I was waiting. Your shoulders looked twice the size of every other sorry bloke out there.”

Walter shakes his hand with a firm grip, growing solemn.

“Aw, enough about me. It was an honor to watch yours.” Then, “Well, my wife awaits,” he says, rolling back in the snow. “She said I wouldn’t get laid tonight if I didn’t qualify. Well, look at me now, eh?!”

John rolls his eyes and waves him off, then finds himself desperately looking up into the stands now that he’s alone, suddenly yearning for his first glimpse of Sherlock and Greg since getting bloody _third_ in the qualifiers.

He spots them almost immediately. He wants to kick himself for not looking for them before, the rush of insane happiness he feels at glimpsing them is so staggering. 

Sherlock is on his feet, calmly waving to John once they lock eyes. His sunglasses are on, and his scarf and muffler, but John can read the emotion in the lines of his body. Can feel the smile on Sherlock’s lips beaming to him across the stands.

Then he turns to look at Greg, who is . . .

Oh, God. Who’s crying, wiping his hand across one eye while smiling at John, beckoning him closer, calling out his name, and John wants to sprint to him—sod his leg—and crush both of them in his arms and weep along with them, kiss them, wipe the tears from Greg’s face—

“John Watson, congratulations on your _impressive_ third place finish in these Para-biathlon time trials!”

John abruptly halts mid-stride, shoved back by a camera and microphone suddenly appearing in his face for the second time that day. Sonya Westley beams at him, her teeth brighter than the snow.

Over her shoulder, in the grandstands, John sees Sherlock rip off his sunglasses with a great scowl. Greg, beside him, gives John a sad and horribly understanding frown, followed by a nod for John to take his time.

John does _not_ want to take his time. But Sonya Westley puts her hand on his back, pulling him closer.

“How does it feel to be the biggest surprise of this race, John?”

“Surprising.”

She gives a tinkling laugh, as if he’s undeniably charming. “I think we all know you were the underdog coming in, with the way the Russians and Ukrainians have dominated this event for decades, and based on your rankings. Did you know you were in place to secure third overall?”

John stares at her. He wants to tell her, on live international television, that he was not, in fact, aware that he had been the “underdog of this race.” That he was only aware of the fact that he was a competitor, like everyone else, no matter how television-worthy dramatic his injury was. No matter what country colors decorated his skis.

But then he catches sight of his gigantic, flushed face on the screen, awkwardly stuttering for words, and he pulls himself together, standing up straight like he once did for inspection and ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

“It . . . it feels lovely,” he says, then his insides twist with embarrassment as his breathless smile once again takes over his face. He nearly laughs. “It feels wonderful.”

He winces at the harsh, panting sound of his exhausted voice through the speakers, but then again, he just came in third. He doesn’t bloody care.

Sonya doesn’t miss a beat. “Now, your pre-Paralympics stats had you slated around number thirty-two out of the forty competitors here. Tell me, did you come in with the goal to prove us all wrong? Was it that death-defying drive that we’ve all seen from you in the past?”

John shakes his head, suddenly clearly understanding of why so many athletes’ post-win interviews sound like utter, nonsensical gibberish. 

“I . . . I just skied as fast as I could,” he says, running his hand through his sweat-matted hair. 

“You also shot a nearly clean course—thirteen out of fifteen shots! Was that coming from a place of trying to make up for any lost time?”

John shrugs, feeling stupid. “Yeah, I shot as cleanly as I could, too. I . . . I wasn’t even aware of the time. I was just doing what I’ve trained to do.”

The microphone inches closer, practically touching his lips. “And what was going through your head during the race, then?”

John can’t very well tell the entire globe that he was thinking about nothing at all, just like he can’t tell them that he also briefly thought about dying, and about making out with his two famous boyfriends later that night.

“I, uh . . . my mind was fully on the course, you know? Meditative, I guess.”

Sonya beams at him. “Humble words from this inspiring biathlete here today. John, we hope to see a repeat performance tomorrow for the Finals. Best of luck to you.”

John nods, a beat too late, feeling an incredibly strong sense of deja vu. “Er, yeah. Th-thank you.”

When John looks to the grandstands again, most of the crowd are on their feet, preparing to leave. The first and second place finisher have already had their interviews, and the course is gearing up to switch over for the visual-impairment cross-country race happening early the next morning.

Sherlock and Greg are still awkwardly on their bench, successfully warding off potential autograph-seekers and photo-wanters by staring straight at John, ignoring the passing crowd.

“Watson, the showers!”

John turns and lifts a hand to some of the other ex-military athletes, all heading in a line back to the locker rooms. “In a minute!”

When he turns back to Sherlock and Greg, they both have odd looks on their faces—ones John can’t quite place. He couldn’t possibly tell from this distance, and yet he imagines Greg’s eyes are still wet.

Sherlock lifts a hand in a wave that John thinks means, “ _Go on and shower, then. And congratulations, your leg didn’t fall off._ ”

Greg gives John a thumbs up.

John takes a step back to the locker room, then lifts his hands: _are you sure?_

They both nod and wave him off, the universal signal for, _go on, we’ll be fine, catch you later._

John smiles at them, then, ignoring the stab of something _off_ in his stomach at the thought of just . . . walking away without so much as a hug. But the tide of journalists and athletes around him is almost physically pulling him toward the locker room, away from the stands. 

And so, after one final wave, John turns and walks to the showers, where he can already hear the cheers and celebrations from a successful prelim echoing out over the snow.

 

\--

 

Almost two hours later, John stumbles out of the hot, steaming locker room to a blast of freezing air on his face, and the winter sun already slipping well behind the distant peaks, casting the world in shadow.

He tips his head back to the emerging stars and breathes in the scent of fresh snow and ski wax, taking advantage of the momentary silence before the rest of the athletes still in the locker room start to file out, too.

He’d taken his sweet time coming down from his race. First, there’d been celebrating with the other ex-military guys in their own corner, mostly razzing each other, taking the piss, until John had realized halfway through cleaning off his racing prosthetic that he didn’t know ninety-percent of what the hell pop culture stuff the rest of the guys were even talking about, and he’d slipped into the shower to avoid feeling like a crusty, out of touch hermit.

Then there’d been washing the day’s worth of sweat and grime from his body; servicing his equipment to make sure it was in prime condition for the Finals tomorrow; stretching out every muscle so he’d actually be able to walk. Massaging relaxant into his stump on an empty bench, partly hidden away from the rest of the room even though nearly every athlete in there had their own residual limb.

But now the fresh evening air feels like a kiss to his skin, almost bringing water to his eyes. His body feels sore, but strong. Spent, but not weak. He stands beside the now-empty stadium and revels in the fact that he was a part of it all—the same intimate connection, like the spoke of a wheel, that he used to feel back in his RAF days. 

And the fact that he could find that _here_ , all the way across the world surrounded by strangers . . . John doesn’t know if his body has ever felt so light on its feet. Not since the crash.

He turns when he hears the door blast open, and the remaining athletes all pile out together, lugging their gear with happy, tired smiles still on their faces. John joins them, crunching through the snow as their breaths all fog in the grey light, and pieces of discarded trash from the earlier crowds float eerily along in the wind.

John’s body doesn’t even shiver. Doesn’t feel an ounce of cold.

“Are you all catching the para-shuttle back to the Village?” someone asks the group. 

John doesn’t quite know all their names—they’ve all been split up between different Classes during prep and training—but he recognizes the faces well enough. It suddenly dawns on him, making his skin crawl and his cheeks flush, that he is by far the highest placing athlete among them after the time-trials.

It’s a mantle he doesn’t quite feel ready for, as if he’d snuck into a closet and tried on a Wing Commander’s suit. It almost makes him want to place “normally” tomorrow—in the lower, middle of the pack where he _should_ be, based on his rankings.

Almost.

“My family’s talking of going out to dinner, since I’m not racing tomorrow, but you all—”

“Aw, come on!” someone else calls. “You’re not going to invite us?”

“But your Finals—”

“Aren’t until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yeah, and it’s still early now!”

“One measly dinner won’t hurt.”

“And we can bring our wives, too! Our kids and—”

“Christ, fine. I’m calling Susan now to ask where we should go. Happy?”

“I bloody well am! Who all is in?”

A chorus of yesses rises up from the group, and John feels himself being pulled along like sand in the tide, following them to one of the athlete shuttles waiting in the parking lot—one with a ramp.

“Watson? You’re coming, ya?”

John looks down to Walter next to him. His hand subconsciously goes to his phone in his pocket, which he hasn’t really checked since entering the locker room when he saw that he had a text from James Sholto, and his stomach did an odd flip at the thought of reading it.

“Aw, you all can do without me,” John says. “Remember? I’m too tragic for all of you. My injuries are so dire, I need more time to rest—”

“I am hearing none of that. Come on. You can bring your people, too.”

“I’m not sure if—”

“Your family are here, aren’t they?” Walter goes on. Then he hesitates, and John catches him glancing at his left hand even though no one wore rings during the race. “Your . . . whoever you’re here with?”

And it’s at that precise moment when someone in the group exclaims, “Shit—look who it is!”

John looks up halfway across the parking lot to see Sherlock and Greg standing huddled together by one of the golf carts, hunched over in their coats and staring awkwardly at John, like they can’t decide if they want him to notice them or not.

His heart lurches in his chest, threatening to hop out of his ribs.

“Well fuck me,” someone whistles, “What the hell are _they_ doing in a sorry place like this? Now?”

“Is that who I think it is?” Walter says under his breath.

John nods dumbly as the rest of the group swarms with excitement like schoolboys over seeing Super-Greg and Sherlock Holmes.

“Yes,” John murmurs. “It is.” 

Then, after glancing back and forth between the two groups, John takes a few hesitant steps toward the golf cart, suddenly stranded in a vast, empty chasm between two staring worlds.

“I . . .” he says to the other skiers, but no other words come to him, and he falters. “I’ll just . . . be a moment.”

They all freeze as John turns and ignores the daggers in his back to walk to Sherlock and Greg, who are hesitantly walking forward to meet him.

Sherlock’s lips are blue, as if they’ve been waiting out there forever, and John swallows down an irrational flare of anger over the fact that Sherlock could be warm, and resting, or training, and yet for some godforsaken reason he waited out here in the cold even though he smacked his bloody head into the ice not ten days ago—

“You waited for me?” 

The following beat of silence is incredibly heavy. Then Greg stammers as his cheeks blush, which John distantly realizes is a side of Greg Lestrade which none of the other skiers behind him would ever believe exists.

“We, ah, well we were texting you, for the schedule of your plans. But then you did not reply so we . . . _J’sais pas_ —we wanted to—”

“What Greg here is using his most elegant interview skills to try to communicate is that we _tried_ to reach you, and when that didn’t work we thought you were maybe feeling physically off after your race, hence the over-long period in the shower. So we kept waiting thinking you were just about to step out, and then when you did and we realized you were actually with _friends_ instead of _us_ we felt pathetic and the situation became unbearably awkward, and we didn’t have time to sneak away before you spotted us.”

“ _Putain,_ Sherlock—”

“Correction: _I_ could have snuck away before you spotted me. But Greg here was torn and uncomfortable and froze like a statue. Also his knee is sore.”

“Sherlock,” John says, but he can’t help the grin that’s starting to spread across his face.

Greg sees it and steps closer to John, his eyes flicking warily to the rest of the men still staring at them open-mouthed, waiting by the shuttle.

“Of course we waited for you,” Greg whispers, bringing his hand up to lightly grab the sleeve of John’s jacket. “We would always wait for you.”

John takes Greg’s hand, hidden from view by their bodies, and holds it tightly. Greg’s fingers are frozen. 

“You idiots,” John says, shaking his head. “You’re both icicles.”

Sherlock huffs an errant curl out of his face, then tucks it back up into his beanie when it falls back in his eyes. “Well, you’re the one who just wasted half the earth’s water supply with your hour long show—”

“Ah, _non_ , you do not get to speak as if you are innocent,” Greg says, but his eyes are warm. “You are the one who said, and I quote, ‘Wait, I just need to see him,’ when I suggested that we leave earlier because you almost broke your head eight days ago, and it is near freezing—”

“Oh alright, well if we’re spilling each other’s dirty secrets, then,” Sherlock says, standing tall and lifting his chin, “ _You_ started crying before John even pushed off for his start because you claimed, and _I_ quote, ‘ _Il est tellement beau avec les couleurs de la Grande Bretagne sur l’écran là haut._.’”

John frowns. “Because I what?”

Greg’s cheeks turn adorably red, and he runs his hand through his hair. “You . . . the colors of your racing suit—they suited you. That is all—”

“He thought you looked hot on the broadcast screen,” Sherlock says, as if he’s offended at having to even say the words.

“Ah, well . . .” John murmurs, trying to laugh and shrugging.

Greg just stares at his face.

In the silence that follows, with the three of them looking at each other in the darkness, Greg’s hand still held in John’s, John feels a tight ball of emotion rise in his throat.

He blinks against the fresh gust of icy wind across the parking lot. “I . . . I’m so sorry, for today. Not checking my phone. I didn’t—”

“This is your Olympics,” Sherlock says, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

Greg quickly nods. “ _On comprend_ , J. We just . . . when you came in _third_ . . . we were so—”

“Watson!”

The three of them jump, and John whips his head back over his shoulder to see Walter coming toward them.

“Watson, are you still coming? To dinner?”

John looks back at Sherlock and Greg and catches the tail end of a silent glance between them, filled with meaning but too quick for John to fully catch.

Greg’s face sags, even as he stands tall and strong, taking a step back. “You should have told us they were waiting for you for the dinner,” he says, nodding at the still-waiting group with a flat smile. “You should go, of course. We have said congratulations. We will not keep you.”

John’s ribs squeeze. “But what will you—”

“Surely you don’t doubt my ability to keep Greg entertained for just _one_ evening without you, do you?” Sherlock says.

But as John looks at them both, their faces carefully blank and pleasant, and as Walter calls his name one more time, and the rest of the group cheers and whistles for him to come, John realizes that the absolute _last_ thing he wants to do is get in the shuttle behind him.

That “his Olympics” would mean nothing if he wasn’t sharing it with the men standing before him—every minute.

“Just, wait here,” John says to them, taking a step back. “Don’t leave.”

Sherlock and Greg both softly frown as John turns and walks back to Walter, who’s looking at him with undisguised curiosity.

“Jesus, Watson, how do you know _them_?” he asks, almost giddy.

John shrugs and gives a half-smile. “Just . . . they’re old skiing mates, I guess. We met one year in France at a lodge. They’d heard about my placing today and . . . came by to say hello.”

Walter peers around John. “They’re both taller than I always imagined,” he mutters. “And it looks like they just said a hell of a lot more than ‘hello’ to you.”

John shoves his hands in his pockets. “Well, Sher—Holmes’ event got postponed, you know. Until after us. He’s still training so they . . . they were just filling me in on that. Asking about my race.”

Walter hums. “I would ask them along to dinner, but I’m pretty sure the rest of the guys would just sit there and stare at them in silence.”

John laughs. “Yes, please spare us all from that.” Then he shuffles his feet. “But, speaking of dinner . . . I think I’ll just—”

“Aw, come on. Just a quick dinner! You have to eat regardless. It won’t affect the Finals!”

“I . . . I’m going to eat with someone else, actually,” John says, staring at his feet. He gestures at Sherlock and Greg. “They’ll give me a ride back.”

Walter stares at him, then slaps a hand at John’s stomach. “Well who is this someone else, then? Who’s so much better than us?”

When John doesn’t answer, not quite able to meet Walter’s gaze, Walter gives him a smug grin, understanding flashing across his face. 

“Aw, come on then, bring her along. My wife will be there, too. Let us meet your date!”

John wonders if Walter can feel that the air just turned ten times thicker, heavy on their skin. He swallows. “It’s not that I don’t want to go. It’s not all of you. But . . .”

Something passes over Walter’s face, and he sits back. “Ah, you want to celebrate in private, eh? I get it . . .”

And even though he’s joking, even though it’s the middle of an abandoned parking lot in the dark, even though John has an Olympic Final tomorrow, and his right thigh is aching, and he just met Walter roughly ten days ago at the shooting range . . . even though he will probably never see Walter again after tomorrow, John holds his gaze, and the rest of the world falls away.

“Yes,” John whispers. “With him.”

Walter’s eyes subtly widen with shock in the pounding beat of silence that follows, and John starts taking a hesitant step back, fearing the worst, when Walter quickly rolls forward so that they’re close again, lifting up a hand so John will stay.

“I . . . I didn’t know,” Walter says, almost grimacing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed.”

John gives him a genuine look. “Everyone assumes. It’s alright.”

Walter swallows, his hands drumming awkwardly on the wheels of his chair. “So . . . these two celebrities . . . they will take you where you need to go? To meet him?”

John hadn’t realized how nervous he was that Walter would make that final connection, until relief explodes through him as he sees that Walter is utterly clueless, still staring at Sherlock and Greg with vague stars in his eyes.

John clears his throat. “Er, yeah. Greg has access to the cart, so. They’ll take me.”

Walter laughs. “It’s fucking weird hearing you refer to _Gregory Lestrade_ as just Greg, I’ll tell you that.” 

“Considering the shit you’ve seen, I’m honored to surprise you.”

The moment turns serious. “You surprised us all today. Fucking third place time trials.”

John dips his head. “Whatever magic overtook me will be gone by tomorrow, don’t worry.” Then he looks up at a loud whistle—sees the rest of the skiers all piled into the shuttle, waiting.

“Look,” John says, trying to control his voice. “About . . . about what I—”

“You can trust me,” Walter says.

“It’s just that I . . . nobody—”

“John.”

John nods. He doesn’t particularly care to elaborate, and the enormity of what he’s done is starting to sit like ice in his stomach, pounding and thick. 

“Well, see you tomorrow,” John says, stepping back.

Walter nods, then winks. “Try to sleep for at least an hour, eh?”

John shakes his head as he watches Walter turn and race back to the shuttle, wheeling up the ramp before the door slams shut. Then they speed toward the Village, the men all waving to John through the windows, half of them shooting him a thumbs up, half flipping the bird.

When he turns back to Sherlock and Greg, they’re already seated in the cart, and Sherlock has Greg’s jacket wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

“Seriously?” John says as he carefully gets in the back, adjusting his leg.

“Christ, John, and you were the one _so concerned_ about my physical welfare. Leaving me out in the cold for a conversation that should have taken two bloody seconds.”

John looks to Greg, who’s now only wearing a long-sleeve shirt. “You let him bully you? That sounds very unlikely.”

Greg shrugs, and John can see that he’s shivering. “What can I say? He is very convincing.” Then he pinches Sherlock’s cheek, making Sherlock yelp. “And he is not very cute when he’s cold.”

John shakes his head as they start to drive down the dark streets, navigating through the traffic around the rink where the Para Ice Hockey Finals are taking place. He closes his eyes and sits back, letting the wind rustle his hair, the cool air soothing his sore muscles. 

He sits up when he feels a hand on his thigh.

It’s Sherlock, leaning back over the front seat, looking incredibly, startlingly solemn. 

“You _will_ place tomorrow,” Sherlock says, his grip very firm.

John chuckles and shakes his head, ignoring the flip in his stomach. “Not even _you_ can predict that. I got lucky today.”

The brakes slam, then, and Sherlock flies forward and nearly falls to the floor of the cart.

“Teach you to wear your seat belt as I asked of you,” Greg says to a scowling Sherlock, who’s picking himself up from his jumble of limbs.

Then Greg turns around, putting his hand on John’s leg where Sherlock’s had been. His eyes are huge and dark. “I believe him.”

After a few seconds of quickly blinking, John pats Greg’s hand, then nods at him to keep driving. “Come on,” he says, clearing his throat, “Can’t have me falling apart out here. I haven’t even eaten dinner yet.”

“You’ve a lean steak and steamed vegetables waiting for you in Greg’s room,” Sherlock says, his eyes glued to his phone.

Greg gives him a sidelong look. “Do I even want to ask how that occurred?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “Nope.”

And as the two of them start bickering on proper security protocols for the coach housing complex, John slips out his phone for the first time since before his race, flicking it on.

He has that unread text from James Sholto wishing him luck, letting John know that he’s going to watch the broadcast and hope for Gold.

John quickly scrolls past.

And he has thirty-two more missed texts from Sherlock and Greg, thirty of which appear to be various ways of demanding where he is, asking when he’s coming out of the locker room, asking what he wants to do that evening, etcetera.

But then there are two, received when John realizes he was actually mid-race, and reading them makes his eyes water, and his heart stop in his chest. 

His phone shakes in his hand.

Received: _John, you don’t realize this, as you are currently skiing your second lap, and looking quite rugged and desirable doing it, I might add. But you are going to win third in this time-trial. Everyone is going to be shocked and surprised that you proved yourself worthy of such an accomplishment, based on your supposed ranking. But not me._

And then:

Received: _J, you have just shot seven clean targets in a row. I used to think that the happiest day of my life was when I saw you next to S the day he met you on the slope. But I was wrong. It is now, watching you ski in your Olympics. With S next to me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French:
> 
> Je suis fier de toi : I'm proud of you  
> Je sais pas : I don't know.  
> Il est tellement beau avec les couleurs de la Grande Bretagne sur l’écran là haut : He looks so handsome in the Great Britain colors up on the screen.  
> On comprend : We understand.
> 
> \--
> 
> Alright, let's be real, this chapter and the next one are *very altered* from how a normal Paralympic Biathlon competition would work. BUT the key elements remain the same in that the athletes do not all compete together at the same time, but rather in different rounds for each Class: sitting, standing, and visually impaired. Each Class has its own unique course length and shooting adaptations, as well as different equipment allowed. 
> 
> Some Classes use time-trial formats for their prelims, and some use a normal 'everyone start at the same time' race for prelims. I gave John a time-trial. 
> 
> How is there only one winner if there are three separate Finals (and three separate Prelims), you ask? 
> 
> Well, the International Paralympic Committee has predetermined "percentages"--called Time Factors -- based on how they have determined each athlete's unique adaptations and disabilities affect their final time compared to an able-bodied athlete. They then apply this percentage to the final time of each competitor, and the competitor with the fastest time (or highest points, etc.) *after* the percentage -- their Factored Time -- is the overall winner. This means that crossing the finish line first does not necessarily mean that you would medal at all on the eventual Final podium. 
> 
> (And honestly, even I'm still confused about who wins what how. The Classes are all very confusing. So even if I'm totally wrong above . . . that's at least how it's working in this fic. Forgive me.)
> 
> \--
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for having faith in me and sticking around with this WIP! My heart is still totally invested in these skiers in love, I just had to take some time to focus on some "real life" writing for a bit :) Your comments, as always, are adored and keep me going. I can't wait to read them <3
> 
> Next time: A nervous Greg and an even more nervous Sherlock watch JOHN'S OLYMPIC FINAL.


	13. It's Alright Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Just a heads up that Gus Kenworthy does not exist in this universe. If that makes sense to you, cool. If that doesn't make sense to you, also cool.
> 
> [ If you (understandably) skipped over my end notes after last chapter about ***Factored Time*** with Paralympic races . . . Just know that Paralympic athletes have a percentage applied to their final time (or score), based on how much it has been determined that their disability affects their performance. This results in their Factored Time - or official time - which determines the medals. So if you had a mass start in Para-biathlon (which you wouldn't in reality but whatever), crossing the finish line first would *not* necessarily mean that you automatically win Gold. Also, in reality, there is a separate Gold medal winner for Sitting Class, Standing Class, and Visually Impaired, and there are also 3 race lengths available for each of those Classes. Which means that there are NINE "Gold Medal Paralympic Biathlon winners" for each Olympics. BUT SCREW ALL THAT. This universe has ONE overall winner of the event across the 3 Classes, determined magically by Factored Times, and only 1 course length. Don't ask how it works. Just accept it. ]
> 
> Listen to "It's Alright Now" by Bombay Bicycle Club [HERE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZSI4-MHWg)
> 
> Enjoy John's final :) and heap praises on my steadfast beta, Mel.

_20th February 2018; 7:25 a.m._

 

Greg watches John methodically lift bites of scrambled eggs to his mouth, one after the other. Exactly every fifth bite, John alternates with a rounded spoonful of oatmeal. He takes a gulp of water, a small sip of tea, then breathes a deep sigh through his nose before he starts the careful process all over again.

The sight of it makes Greg sick to his stomach—watching his brave, warm, uncontainable John act like nothing more than a machine putting fuel into his body. Not just neat and tidy, the way he knows John can be, but . . . contained. Tamped down.

_Putain_ , he hates it. He turns to Sherlock instead.

Except that _salaud_ is only taking the tiniest, bird-size nibbles of his toast, drinking tea made of eighty-percent sugar while watching John out of the corner of his eye with a sharp, calculating glance. Probably counting the bites and the sips of tea, just like Greg is. Cataloguing them away in that huge brain of his to bring up later at the _most_ inopportune moment, the way he inevitably seems to do.

And the worst part—the part that makes Greg’s bones want to crawl out of his skin—is that Greg _knows_ John notices. Knows that he’s pretending to be oblivious, calmly eating his breakfast, as if he doesn’t have an Olympic Final in eight hours. As if the two men at the table with him didn’t willingly miss him for months just for the smallest hope of watching him stand at the top of a podium, a flag about his shoulders, and the world at his feet.

They’ve been silent for fifteen whole minutes now, and Greg can’t bear another second of it or he’ll go mad.

Actually, they’ve been largely silent for going on fifteen _hours_.

When they’d gotten back to Greg’s room last night after stopping by both Sherlock and John’s buildings for them to grab changes of clothes, there had, indeed, been a hot meal waiting for them under covered plates on the desk. They’d eaten while watching the Olympic highlights from the day on Sherlock’s iPad in comfortable silence, then John had gone to shower again, despite Sherlock’s muttering about water being a finite resource. To which John had argued that Sherlock regularly takes three showers a day back at home, exorbitant water bill be damned. To which Sherlock had pointed out that his limbs are far longer than John’s, thereby requiring more water to get them clean. At which point John had looked at Greg and asked him to kindly tell Sherlock and his long, clean limbs to fuck off.

But twenty minutes later, when John had come out of the shower using his crutches with a towel wrapped around his hair, he’d asked Sherlock, very quietly, if he would help him with his leg.

Which had led to Greg witnessing Sherlock’s massage routine with John’s stump in full for the first time. 

John had lain on the bed on his stomach while Sherlock fetched the cream. And Greg had sat there, tensed on the edge of the mattress, drinking in the sight of John’s strong back, the familiar lines of ink, while also feeling acutely that he shouldn’t be allowed to see. So Greg had taken one last, long look, then asked John if he wanted him to step out for a bit until they were done. 

John, his face pressed into the sheets, had simply reached over and held Greg’s hand.

And he hadn’t let go. 

Not as Sherlock’s fingertips traced the scars on his thigh and shoulder. Not as he groaned with discomfort when Sherlock worked out the kinks in his muscles, digging in with his thumbs. Not until Sherlock had given him a final pat on his backside, shot Greg a brief, full look, then went to get a towel to wipe off his hands.

And when the three of them crawled into bed, it had seemed like everyone was hesitant to make a sound. As if one wrong word, one errant breath, could shatter John’s chances for the next day.

They hadn’t really said a single word to each other since. Had woken up, gotten ready, and come down to breakfast all in uneasy silence—a silence which Greg realizes a second too late that Sherlock is about to break. He only has time to be grateful that Sherlock is glaring at _him_ , and not John, before Sherlock opens his mouth:

“Would it physically injure you to eat your porridge without spilling half the blueberries off each bite?”

Greg looks down at his spoon where a blueberry is, in fact, already en route to falling off the side. He lets it fall back into his bowl, holding Sherlock’s gaze as it does.

“ _Vraiment? C’est de ça dont tu veux parler? Il n’y a rien de plus important en ce moment?_ ”

“Oh, that’s genius. Speak only in French as if that will make it so John can’t hear you and be distracted. Why didn’t _I_ think of that?”

“Holmes, just because you do not like the silence does not mean that you can decide when—”

“Don’t Holmes me over breakfast. And it has nothing to do with me liking or not liking silence. What I don’t like is watching you be incompetent using a _spoon_ when you’re supposed to be world class athlete at a sport that uses considerable hand-eye coordination.”

“Spoons?” Greg feels he could laugh if there wasn’t a panicked sort of frustration rising up in his throat. “ _On ne va pas parler des cuillères._ This has only to do with—”

“Well, I for one was fine with the silence, thanks for asking,” John suddenly cuts in.

Sherlock and Greg both freeze.

“J . . .” Greg tries, but John just puts another mechanical bite of food in his mouth, chews, and swallows.

“It’s fine.”

The horrible silence continues, wretched and choking. Greg tries not to flinch every time John’s fork scrapes the plate, or Sherlock’s mug hits the table. He wonders if the entire dining hall can feel the subtle tension radiating from their corner. If he and Sherlock are ruining John’s chances for success by not just getting up and leaving him alone—

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” John says then, setting down his fork.

Sherlock’s shoulders are tight, and he stares at John’s hand.

Greg can feel eyes on them from another table, the slight burn of curious glances, but he very carefully keeps his gaze on John. 

“We should not have distracted you,” he says, hating that he unintentionally just used his ‘calming Coach voice.’ “It is alright—the silence. _Pas de soucis_.”

John nods, and Greg thinks they’ll go back to their uncomfortable breakfast, when it’s as if a dam breaks, and John leans forward, holding his head in his hands.

“It’s just that . . . yesterday wasn’t supposed to happen, right? It shouldn’t have happened.”

Sherlock frowns, his brows scrunching together into one line as his lips part to speak, but John goes on, “I mean, I wasn’t . . . I wasn’t supposed to place like that. I don’t know what came over me. Where that came from. It didn’t even feel _difficult_ in the moment. I wasn’t even trying. My skis just . . . And now today should feel like any other bloody race. Just go out there and do what I know and it’ll all be over. It’s just one day of my whole life. But it doesn’t—I can’t seem to—”

Sherlock puts his palm on John’s arm, squeezing the tense muscle. “John, listen to me,” he says in a low, steady voice, and Greg closes his eyes. 

He’s heard Sherlock use that voice before, back when everything was tense and pulsing, dangerous and brilliant. When Sherlock had leaned over Greg in bed the first morning they woke up tangled together in the sheets, and he’d placed his hand on Greg’s chest, courage burning in his eyes, and he’d said, “ _This was not a mistake._ ”

“What happened to you yesterday was not a fluke,” Sherlock is saying, and Greg’s eyes flutter open just in time to catch a look of pale nausea pass over John’s face. “It wasn’t something else that came over you. It _was_ you.”

John doesn’t turn to look at him. “Oh, and you know this because you’re the expert on the past, present, and future?”

“I know this because I am somewhat of an expert on _you_. I know what you are capable of.”

“That’s what every partner is supposed to say. You can’t _not_ believe in me. It’s like a script.”

Greg laughs despite himself. “I would love to see the script for our relationship. And have a word with who wrote it.”

John flashes him a quick, warm smile with just his eyes, bathing Greg in sunlight, before the twisted, blank pain settles once more over his face. 

Sherlock is mid-scoff. “Yes, Greg, you’re hilarious. I bet it would be turned into a film and nominated for one of those Olivers.”

Greg stares at him, the original conversation forgotten. “ . . . an _Oscar_?”

“As if you understand anything at all about what happens in America. Let alone some niche trophy.”

“Sherlock, _c’est un prix international_. How do you not—”

“And besides. They would never consider a film of our relationship. They all hardly keep from fainting when two men kiss, let alone—”

“As I was saying,” John says, cutting them off, his head still in his hands. He pauses for a beat, taking a breath. “I would almost be offended if you _didn’t_ think I could do well. If neither of you had said what you told me last night on the drive back. But that doesn’t mean I _actually_ believe—”

“John.” 

Sherlock leans closer to him, his curls tangling with John’s hair. Greg fervently wishes he was sitting on their side of the table. 

“Do you think that I, of all people, would waste my breath lying to you?” Sherlock says. “Believe me. I would much rather be speaking with Greg about my own training, or criticizing your choices of breakfast food, or illuminating you both on the fact that I am clearly superior at giving head, but instead I’m telling you this. Now. What could I _possibly_ gain with empty platitudes? For giving you false hope? You—whom I know would see right through it, and doubt it immediately?”

Greg waits, holding his breath, for John to snap back that Sherlock doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about—that he’s rude, or that people can _bloody hear him_ discuss their secret sex life over the breakfast table, or that he needs to learn, for once in his life, that he can’t just say whatever he damn well pleases whenever he wants.

But then, to Greg’s shocked, silent surprise, John completely relaxes.

“Yeah,” John murmurs, nodding his face in his hands. He looks up at them both, his face pale, but his eyes sharp. “Yeah, okay.”

Greg stares at him, afraid to move for fear he’ll break the calm spell. His heart is beating harder than it used to on the mornings of his own race days, counting down the seconds until John has to be at the starting line. He focuses on the deep, midnight blue of John’s eyes so he doesn’t stand up and flip the table at the _longing_ he suddenly feels for his own race-day calm. The determination that used to settle over his own body like a suit of armor. The focus that was like nothing he’d experienced before or since, and the _purpose_ of it all . . . But he isn’t racing today. Won’t ever be racing again. So he picks at the sleeve of his coach’s jacket. Stares at the callus on John’s finger from holding his rifle.

“Would you . . .” Greg licks his lips. He doesn’t want to finish his sentence, afraid of the answer.

Sherlock is staring at him. Greg quickly meets his gaze, and a silent understanding passes between them like a pulse. It’s the understanding that Sherlock knows exactly what it meant that John held Greg’s hand last night. That Sherlock just called the Oscars the Olivers on purpose to try and help John forget that he has a gruelling, nearly impossible task waiting for him in less than eight hours.

Sherlock gives Greg the tiniest nod, just a dip with his chin, and Greg turns back to John.

“Would you like us all to part here?” he says, keeping his voice light. “Leave you alone the rest of the day. So you can prepare?”

He hates the way his heart twists when John hesitates, then nods yes. 

“Please,” John says, already starting to rise. “It’s nothing to do with you, obviously, I just—”

“Aren’t we the last people on earth you would need to explain yourself to?” Sherlock asks casually up at him, leaning back in his chair. But Greg notices how his knee is bouncing on the floor, and his fingers are clenched white around his mug.

“Right, yeah,” John grins. “I forgot this is all old news for you—Mr. ‘The Olympics are Boring.’”

Greg imagines that John’s grin actually reaches his eyes. He stays seated, for some reason sensing that it’s the right thing to do, and he holds out his hand, momentarily awestruck at the way John’s spine and shoulders look like he’s headed into battle. He’s wearing a plain grey Yosemite National Park pullover he got in California, and his hair hangs down in his face, and he has traces of stubble across his jaw.

His hand, when he takes Greg’s in his, is unbearably, startlingly soft.

And Greg stares up at the man who looks like he belongs in an easy chair on a quiet Sunday morning, nibbling on toast and reading the paper, instead of screaming through the skies in a fighter jet, or skiing across the snow with frightening strength.

He glimpses the outline of John’s metal knee through his snow pants and feels that horrifying, shameful twist of _something_ in his own belly at the thought of the power contained in John’s thigh. The way he shoots with his prosthetic planted into the snow, his chest heaving, and his jaw tight . . .

“We will see you after,” Greg says, giving John’s hand a firm shake. He swallows down the million other things he wants to say, knowing John doesn’t want to hear them—not now. He’d said everything he could possibly say last night when he kissed John’s palm as Sherlock massaged his leg.

John nods back, then takes Sherlock’s hand, too.

“‘The Olivers’ was a bit too clueless, even for you,” he says, smirking.

Sherlock looks back at him, and Greg waits for a comeback or a joke. 

But Sherlock only says, “John.”

Then John grabs his bag, turns his back, and walks away through the hall toward the doors, deftly navigating the crowd. Greg’s heart aches when Sherlock’s face immediately falls once John can’t see. 

“He’s nervous,” Sherlock says, as if to himself. He taps his bottom lip with his fingers in a way that makes him look very young, and Greg feel incomparably old.

“He’ll be alright, love,” Greg softly whispers. He reaches for Sherlock’s knee under the table, calming the fidgeting with his hand. He strokes him with his thumb.

Sherlock’s head whips around to look at him, his eyes blown wide with surprise, and Greg instantly snatches his hand back as his face pales. He can’t believe he’d forgotten that they were in public, surrounded by tables of people who could recognize them both. Who could look, and see, and with one photo, one whispered rumor . . .

Sherlock frowns at him. Greg is _never_ the one to forget that he is The Coach whenever they leave home. Greg folds his hands on the table, his palm burning where he touched Sherlock’s knee, and silence looms.

But they both jump when a plate nearby smashes to the ground. Sherlock looks back to where John just walked away, the moment apparently already forgotten. “He’s _never_ this nervous,” he says, staring at the door. “I’ve never seen him look so . . . so . . .”

Greg swallows hard, longing to touch him again. “ _J’sais._ ”

And _merde_ , Greg _does_ know. He knows because he woke up two times in the middle of the night. 

The first time was to see John standing like a ghost in the dark, leaning on his crutches and staring out the window, the starlight illuminating the lines of his face.

“John?” he’d mumbled, still half asleep. 

And John had jumped at the sound of his voice, then looked at him with an easy smile. “Just getting some water. Go back to sleep.”

Greg had slipped back to his dreams before he could ask if John was alright.

The second time Greg had woken up, it had been to a bright light shining in his eyes. He’d buried his face in the pillow by Sherlock’s head, and was just about to tell him to turn his bloody phone off so he could sleep, when Greg had realized that Sherlock was scrolling through photos the three had taken on their first ever trip together as the three of them, skiing outside Trento in Italy.

Greg had gently wrapped his arm around Sherlock’s chest, pulling him close. 

“ _Dors_ , love,” he’d whispered. 

And Sherlock had huffed. “I am.”

“That cannot help him now. Or you. Just sleep.”

Then Sherlock had turned off his phone with a sigh, dropped it down on his stomach, and become very still in Greg’s arms.

“I . . . I want to go back there,” he’d whispered, when Greg had been on the verge of falling asleep again.

“To Italy? You claimed you hated the snow there. _Trop molle_.”

“Of course I didn’t hate it. Wet snow is no particular challenge for a skier of my calibre.”

“ _Bien sûr_ , I forgot that you were the champion of everything.”

Then, so softly Greg had to hold his breath to hear, Sherlock whispered, “Will you . . . _tu peux caresser mes cheveux?_ Like you used to do?”

So Greg had swallowed hard, pulled Sherlock close, and gently run his fingers through Sherlock’s curls. Just like he used to do back on the long, dark nights when Sherlock couldn’t sleep because he was missing a certain high running through his veins. Those early days together, when they’d come back home from a long practice and immediately fall into bed, wet lips on skin, until Sherlock would pass out in an exhausted heap, drooling on Greg’s chest.

And Greg hadn’t been able to remember when or why he’d ever stopped. Why he’d never thought to do it when John was in California for those months. Why it never felt like he could do it when John would see.

But last night, John had slept obliviously on beside them as Greg stroked Sherlock’s hair, until Sherlock’s head rolled heavily in his palm. Greg had closed his eyes and listened to them both as shadows danced through the room. 

He’d thought of that week in Italy. Of what his parents would say if they could see him now. Of how sore his knee was going to feel in the morning.

“ _Allez_ ,” Greg says now, rubbing his palms together. He slaps them down on the sticky laminate surface, and Sherlock jumps like a startled horse. “You have your own schedule for today. Do not think that you have gotten out of it just because we have a Final to attend later.”

And to his relief, Sherlock’s body shifts into a calm focus, even as he pastes on a frown while they stand to clear their plates.

“But _dad_ ,” Sherlock whines, loud enough for others to hear. “You said we could go to the _zoo_ today. Not _work_.”

“ _Mon dieu_ ,” Greg mutters under his breath as they go to leave. “ _Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait pour te mériter?_ ”

Sherlock’s shoulder brushes against his as they step out into the Village, images of John’s tense face momentarily forgotten. “Honestly, Gregory, I’ve no idea.” His fingertips briefly touch Greg’s wrist. “But I’m quite glad you did whatever it was.”

 

\--

 

For the rest of the morning, Greg does his best to pretend John Watson doesn’t exist.

He forces himself to turn his phone completely off so he won’t be tempted to text like he did the day before. He thinks of John walking around the Biathlon center with the German athlete they’d seen from afar in the parking lot. He thinks of John laughing, and eating a quick lunch, and drinking enough water, and enjoying the clear sky.

He trusts John to be alright—to be there on time, warming up his body and in the right mental space. He trusts him, he really does, and yet—

But no. His phone is off. He isn’t making that mistake again.

Despite their nerves, he and Sherlock have a surprisingly efficient session on the training slope, working on Sherlock’s angles for the wider gates. They only disagree once, and the issue is magically solved in a matter of seconds when they both realize that cameras are pointed at them from the sidelines of the course, gathering footage for highlight reels.

Greg even manages to drag Sherlock to the gym for some cardio before the usual cool down and massage, and he only ends up needing to pop two pills for his knee instead of the usual four. He uses his Coach-voice on Sherlock exactly twice the whole morning, watching for his chances and waiting until they’re out of earshot of the cameras, and it’s completely worth it to watch Sherlock’s eyes pool black and the shiver run across his skin.

The skies are bright and clear as they eventually find their seats in the roped-off VIP part of the grandstands at the Biathlon Stadium—the stands packed full and buzzing now that it’s the Finals. Sherlock, through some infuriating ability to time things perfectly without even trying, has timed it so they arrive mere seconds after the previous Class Final ends. John’s—the Standing Class, and arguably the most anticipated—comes last.

It’s almost pleasant enough— _almost_ —to make Greg forget that he’s about to helplessly sit and watch his first love try to win an Olympic Gold. That there isn’t anything he can do other than blow into his hands to keep them warm.

“This place is a zoo,” Sherlock mumbles under his breath, crossing his arms and scrunching his nose. A noisemaker goes off behind them to congratulate the Norwegian who just won first in Sitting Class.

Greg hums. He idly scans the Standing Class athletes starting to make their way onto the field, grateful for the sunglasses that block the glaring sun. “You told to me this morning that you were wanting a trip to the zoo.”

“It’s boring of you to be so literal. I might leave you for someone else more desirable in the stands.”

“Ah, _oui?_ ”

“Yes. Someone intelligent and mysterious. With a much sexier accent.”

Sherlock’s voice shakes even as he holds his chin high, and Greg realizes he’s shivering under his two layers of coats. He sighs and makes a show of taking off the extra jacket under his own Team France one—the one he’d specifically put on that morning because he knew that this would happen.

Sherlock sniffs when Greg tosses the jacket over his shoulders, making him look vaguely like _Le Bossu de Notre Dame_. “I’ll also be sure to find someone whose outerwear choices aren’t appallingly out of style.” He rolls his eyes in disgust. “And you call yourself _gay_.”

The noise of the stands is far too loud for anyone to have heard, but Greg still suppresses an irritating flinch—the urge to glance over his shoulder and protect his back. 

“You are putting your blame on the wrong party,” he says, acting casual even though he knows Sherlock picked up on the tension in his body. “I know you have not forgotten that Rossignol paid me to wear that jacket. Or that the money paid for John’s room at the lodge where you first met him. _Je pense que tu devrais lui montrer un peu plus de respect_.”

Sherlock just sighs, even as he slips his arms in and wraps the too-big coat tight around his chest. “Honestly, this jacket would have looked unforgivable even in the year you received it. Which, based on its color combination, I suspect was 1982.”

“When I was four years old?”

“I’ll find someone who’s not so dreadfully _ancient_ either.”

Greg tries not to smirk when Sherlock surreptitiously ducks his chin to breathe in the collar, inhaling the scent. He claps a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder the way he does on the slopes. “ _Alors, bonne chance,_ Holmes.”

They sit bathed in the fresh sunshine as the minutes tick by, enjoying the hot tea and biscuits Sherlock smuggled into the stadium. Greg peers through the swarming, ant-like chaos below as the athletes prepare, and the journalists and cameras descend, and the course attendants triple check that everything is in place for the next round.

They last precisely thirteen minutes in this way before Greg hears a throat clear just behind him.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to bother you . . .” 

Greg takes a deep breath and turns around, ignoring Sherlock’s foot stomping on his.

A woman dressed head-to-toe in the Canadian flag gapes at him. “Are you . . . are you really . . . it’s just that I couldn’t believe it was . . .” She squeals. “Could I _please_ have a photo with you?” 

Greg puts on his best greeting-the-public face and pulls his sunglasses off, swallowing down his irritation at the fact that he’d _just_ found John among the athletes. “Ah, yes. Yes I am. Of course,” he says, kicking Sherlock’s foot back when Sherlock snorts beside him, his eyes still fixed on the course.

“Oh my God—wait—and you . . . you’re _Sherlock Holmes?_ ”

Sherlock chokes on his swallow of tea as Greg slaps a hand down on his back. “But of course,” Greg says, loud enough for all around to hear. “This is indeed Sherlock Holmes. He would be happy to take the photo with you as well.”

“ _Ça tu vas me le payer_ ,” Sherlock hisses into Greg’s ear midway through the first photo. After the second photo, he whispers again, “You will die.”

Greg just smiles even wider, and the phone cameras flash.

Nearly twenty photos and even more autographs later, Greg is just wondering whether he can sneak away to use the restroom when the Olympics theme music blasts through the speakers, and the announcers boom over the crowd:

“ _Hwangyong-hamnida . . . Bienvenue . . . Welcome, to the Standing-Class Para-Biathlon Finals of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Paralympic Games!_ ”

“Ah, _putain_ ,” he moans.

Sherlock hums, settling back in his seat. “Yes, you really should have used the loo back when you had the chance. But _no_. You had to please your adoring fans.”

Greg elbows him in the ribs. “You are lucky you’re beautiful, _non_?” he whispers, joking.

Then the sunlight hits Sherlocks curls peeking out from his beanie just so, and his eyelashes glint like stars, and his full lips curve into a grin, and the truth of what Greg just said hits him so squarely in the chest he can hardly breathe.

Because he _never_ thought that he would get to have a life where he sits in the grandstands of an Olympic Final with his love by his side, wearing his coat. Getting ready to watch the man they both kissed last night ski across the stadium screen. And Greg wants to breathe in the sun, and reach for Sherlock’s face, and pull his mouth towards his own, run his fingers through Sherlock’s curls in the light of day, taste his grin—

But no. 

They’d all firmly decided on that point, hadn’t they? Greg himself had lead the charge. Just a month or two in, when they’d all sat down with cups of tea at the kitchen table, and they had agreed—three solemn promises—that this would be nobody’s business but their own. That they were not going to risk a single second of anyone’s career just for the sake of holding a hand, or standing too close. And _putain_ , Greg is his _coach_ —

The music swells, and the crowd roars.

Greg bolts upright, his heart pounding, as the athletes’ official portraits and stats begin to flash up on the screen one by one, signifying their order from time-trials from last to first.

Sherlock, oblivious to the fact that he was almost just kissed in public, tries to look disinterested even as he doesn’t blink, his eyes fixed on the screen.

“Kuznetsov could conceivably win overall Gold if he skis his best,” Sherlock mutters under the fresh wave of noise for each athlete. 

“I do not know why I am surprised that you have apparently memorized other athletes’ racing statistics, but I am.”

Sherlock scoffs. “It’s simple numbers. It’s hardly rocket science to remember that.”

“Perhaps to some.”

“John would . . . he would have to PR by . . .”

“Two minutes and eighteen seconds,” Greg supplies.

Sherlock stares at him, looking shocked, and Greg feels his cheeks heat.

“ _Quoi_? You are the only one allowed to do the maths?”

Sherlock glowers back at the course as the sixth place time-trial finisher is announced, and the Canadian section of the grandstands cheers. “Well, anyway, Kuznetsov is only the favorite because of his fluke World Championship—”

“Oh, him winning the Gold in Sochi does not count as well?

“—goes out too strong and fades in the last lap if there’s no one behind him. Vanko could give him some competition if he shoots well—”

“The Ukrainian? He only missed a single shot at World’s. But the year before, it was four. And lap-average in January was slower than John’s.”

Again, Sherlock stares at him. “When did you possibly have the time to—?”

“You think you are the only one who has not slept? Who has been lying awake at night?”

“Obviously not. But that’s what _my_ race is for—to keep you occupied when you’re staring at the ceiling, and while I’m thinking about John.”

“I stare at you far more than I stare at the ceiling,” Greg says under his breath.

Then they both seem to simultaneously remember Sherlock falling asleep with Greg’s hand running through his hair the night before, the way he had begged him to do it, John quietly snoring beside them, and the air turns thick and hot. It presses down on Greg’s shoulders like an invisible weight.

Sherlock’s downcast eyes shift back to the course, and Greg’s chest tightens at the way his spine is curved, his arms curled around his stomach. “Well, anyway,” Sherlock mumbles in a flat voice, “I guess I have you to fact-check John’s chances, now. Tell me whenever I’m wrong.”

“Love,” Greg barely whispers. He shifts closer to him in their seats. “ _Écoute._ I know that you care. That you feel strongly, as I do. But I do not think you should have told him that he would place last night. Or even this morning.”

“You told him you believed me.”

“ _J’sais_ , I did. But, now that I have considered it, if it were me . . .”

“But it isn’t you,” Sherlock says, almost too gently.

Greg swallows. “I just . . . I do not want him to think that he must perform a miracle or he’ll let us down.”

“John isn’t racing for us. He’s racing for himself. He’d be doing all this even if we didn’t exist.”

“Even so.”

Sherlock pauses for a long moment, and Greg watches his jaw work. Then Sherlock sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. He sounds deflated. “I know. I know it would have to be a miracle. The numbers aren’t right.”

“John is realistic. He knows of the numbers. But what he said to us this morning about his trial, about not even trying.” Greg shakes his head. “I do not know if I believe him. That he did not try. And I do not know if he can ski any faster.”

Sherlock’s eyes look very far away. “I know.”

“He is always the one telling you that you will medal. But I do not know if we should have said—”

“I know he doesn’t believe me. I don’t even know if I believe myself. But I need . . .” Sherlock turns to Greg, and his eyes look wet. “I just needed him to know, to understand that I think he’s—”

“ _John Watson; Great Britain; Class LW-2; Third Place in time trials, 47.42.09._ ”

They both whip their eyes back to the screen as a wild cheer goes up through the crowd—the loudest one yet. It makes the hair on the back of Greg’s neck stand on end. He looks behind at the rest of the grandstands, stunned, and sees that half the people are on their feet, whistling and calling out for John. Union Jacks block the sun as they ripple in the breeze.

“It seems he made quite the impression yesterday,” Sherlock murmurs, a bit breathless.

Greg can only dumbly nod. 

John’s official Olympics portrait flashes up on the screen, then, next to his place and time from the day before. He’s got his arms held behind his back in perfect military form, decked out in the Great Britain Paralympic Uniform he never actually wore. The navy blue jacket hugs his chest and the muscles of his arms, perfectly framing his neck. 

His hair’s been styled, glinting almost white-blond, and the rest of the stadium falls away as Greg finds himself arrested in the familiar blue stare of his eyes. The way he’s pinning the camera with his gaze, and the sharp line of his jaw under a day’s worth of stubble, and Greg thinks about the piercings hidden under that jacket, the lines of the tattoo across his back which Greg has kissed and licked . . .

“He’d be horrified if he knew how much you’re enjoying this portrait, which he despises,” Sherlock leans over to say.

Greg gives him a look. “ _Tais-toi_. You like it, too.”

Sherlock’s cheeks turn pink, and he doesn’t argue.

The screen fades away to the next competitor, and Greg’s attention immediately shifts to seeking John out among the skiers gathering near the start line roughly fifty yards away. He peers through the swarm of camera lenses and course officials, searching for the colors of John’s racing suit, or the sleek black and steel of his leg, or a pair of deep blue eyes.

“Three from the right,” Sherlock whispers. “Next to that absolute giant of a Pole.”

Greg rolls his eyes and is considering chastising him when he immediately finds John where Sherlock said he’d be, and the words die in his throat.

John looks frighteningly small.

He’s surrounded by his competitors, who are all crouching and swaying on their skis, itching to start. He looks fragile, breakable, like he could be crushed in an instant by the bodies around him. Like he could be buried forever in a drift of snow, never to be found.

“ _Putain_ ,” Greg breathes. “He looks so . . .”

“I know.” 

“I was going to say—”

“Small.”

Guilt flushes up Greg’s neck. “ _Oui_.”

Sherlock scoots closer to him in their seats until their thighs touch. Greg leans into him for a moment, grateful for the wall of people hiding them from the rest of the grandstands.

“He does not look that nervous now, actually,” Greg adds, noting the way John’s shoulders look relaxed, and his gaze appears to be almost serenely fixed on the course, not glancing at his competitors or the screen or the crowd.

“He told me once . . .” Sherlock starts, then he has to raise his voice to practically yell over the roar of the crowd when Kuznetsov is introduced, and the sixty-second warning is given, “that it reminds him of flying—the moments before a race begins. The take-off. ‘The wheels clinging to the runway to say goodbye,’ is what he said.”

Greg wishes he could see John’s eyes just one last time before the race. A glimpse of his hair beneath his racing suit hood, even. A hint of his hands under his gloves.

“You know,” Greg says, painfully aware of the start time ticking closer, but suddenly unable to stop, “When he and I first met, that winter, I saw John look like this once before.”

Sherlock instantly tenses next to him, on alert and listening even as he tries to look characteristically bored. Greg once again shakes off the terrifying urge to kiss him and goes on as the countdown clock reaches thirty seconds.

“We were at the top of the mountain, deciding which run to take. And one—a double black diamond—it had a sign that it was closed for safety. There had been an avalanche there a week back. The risk—it was too high.”

Sherlock finally looks at him, his curls blowing into his eyes. “And that’s precisely the run John wanted to take, I’m assuming?”

Greg smiles, remembering. “ _Oui_. And he looked like that, right at the top. So . . . _si confiant, si courageux_. I was terrified of the run—my parents would have murdered me if they knew—but I knew that I . . . I had to follow him. I wanted to go where he went, and he asked of me to follow.”

“Obviously, you both survived.”

The countdown reaches ten seconds, and the roar of the crowd vibrates through their seats.

“ _Oui, on a survécu_. And at the bottom, in the trees . . . I tried to tell him how I felt. That I wanted him. That I liked—”

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, your Standing-Class Paralympic Biathlon Finals will begin in ten . . . nine . . ._ ” 

“It was the first time he kissed me,” Greg rushes out, and Sherlock’s eyes go wide because Greg knows he’s _wanted_ to know, for so many years, everything that happened in those weeks. And Greg can’t think of why in the world he hasn’t told him—hasn’t shared with Sherlock the indescribable beauty of John’s cheeks flushed with the adrenaline of the run, his young eyes fixed on Greg’s face, the way they fell shut as Greg leaned forward, and a snowflake had settled on John’s cheek after they first kissed.

But, then again, maybe he does know why he’s never said. Because John’s cheeks had been just as flushed that first day he met Sherlock in the snow, his eyes just as bright. And Sherlock would hear this, and he would _know_ , and it would no longer be Greg’s anymore—those sacred three weeks—

Greg gives himself a good mental shake. “That’s when I knew,” he tries to tell Sherlock over the crowd. “That John was . . . he was my—”

The buzzer sounds.

They both whip their eyes back to the course. John and the rest of the front line push off to lead the explosive charge down the straightaway, barreling toward the uphill turn two-hundred metres away. 

Skis clack and jostle for purchase, echoing like the cracks of a whip, and the jumble of poles whistle as they slice through the air, striking the earth. The individual biathletes transform into a heaving, swarming mass— John somehow among them—as they all fight for their position, trying to gain early ground before they’ll settle into a line for the tight twists of the rest of the course.

Greg stares in awe, trying to imagine what his own races would have been like if he wasn’t all alone, just him and the mountain and the hiss of the wind. The thought turns his stomach.

“Eighth,” Sherlock suddenly breathes.

Greg counts eight skiers back and finds John there, nearly buried in the mass of goggles and poles and swinging limbs. He’s clearly trying to force his way into seventh—adjusting his angle, surging forward into empty pockets on his skis, bursting with strength from his calves—but the men directly in front of him aren’t giving him any room to breathe, closing him off like a wall.

The camera zooms in on the scuffle in the middle of the pack, the mad hoard of skis cutting through the ice as they near the first curve. Greg carefully folds his hands in his lap, watching it all happen as if he’s sitting thousands of miles away at home on his sofa. 

He tries to breathe. Tries to convince himself that John being stuck in eighth is actually a good place to be, when—

An athlete from the outside of the pack makes a sudden cut toward the center, trying for the inside line. His skis smack the athlete directly next to John, who bobbles in place, fighting to remain balanced. His single pole flies up in the air, hitting the athlete skiing in sixth position in front of him, and Greg barely has time to process what’s going on when a gasp of horror rises up from the crowd, everyone on their feet, and the race turns into a single, massive blur of lycra and snow.

“Shit,” Sherlock hisses next to him, his voice high and shrill, and then Greg finally sees: someone has fallen.

The body of one skier is lying flat in the snow, the rest of the pack barely managing to avoid him as they enter the first turn at a breathless pace. They leave him surrounded by harsh ruts in the snow, trails of ice flailing off the backs of their skis. The skier rolls onto his back, and holds a snapped in half pole up into the sky. One of his skis is lying beside him, detached in the snow. He reaches down for his legs, as if he’s going to cradle an injury in his knee, and then Greg catches a flash of glinting metal in the sun, and his lungs fail him.

It’s John.

Sherlock is already halfway over the railing, trying to drop down onto the field.

“John!” Sherlock calls. He starts to swing his other leg over.

Greg comes to his senses. He lurches forward and grabs the back of Sherlock’s jacket. The fabric rips, and Sherlock curses at him, fighting with him as Greg yanks him back, finally shoving him into his seat.

“ _Non._ They will disqualify him if you go,” he hisses, his own panic nearly blinding him, squeezing his ribs. 

“He wouldn’t just _fall_. Something isn’t right—”

“He fell when the other man tried to cut in. You saw it yourself. _Tu sais ça._ ”

Sherlock leaps back to his feet, his eyes wild. “But he needs—”

“I know.” Greg puts his hand on Sherlock’s chest, holding him back. “ _Mais reste ici_. Wait.”

But Greg can barely wait himself. Because he _knows_ that John was probably just caught in that scuffle—and he sees, distantly, that officials have pulled the initial skier from down the course, giving him a red flag for bodily contact—but the thought grows and grows in his mind like a thick, black, choking sky . . .

John might be cold. John might be gripping handfuls of snow, thinking it’s sand. John might be waiting for Sherlock to come, to hold him to his chest and get him warm, and Greg would be stranded in the sands, not knowing if he would be welcome, wanting to break the lens of every camera, and scream at the rest of the world to look away so they wouldn’t see—

But he watches as John, after only a few seconds spent catching his breath back, rolls over onto his hands and knees. 

He waves off the paramedics sprinting toward him, but gestures that he needs a new pole. A course attendant lets John take their arm to haul himself back to his feet, as another comes sprinting across the course holding up fresh poles. John quickly bends and checks the joint of his prosthetic, testing the knee, and precious seconds tick by, the rest of the pack getting farther and farther away, hidden in the trees.

“It buckled. It didn’t hold him up. That’s why he fell,” Sherlock is saying. His hands are clasped in front of his mouth, his body wiry and tense, ready to snap.

Greg steps closer to him as John still tries to re-adjust the ankle joint, looking tiny and lost in the snow. All alone. 

“ _Non,_ ” he says, trying to sound as confident as he can. “Anyone would have fallen. It was the other skier. It is not—”

“I should never have convinced him to race on the leg,” Sherlock rushes on, his voice growing frantic. “He _wanted_ to use a sit-ski and I convinced him not to. He would never have—”

“It was his own decision,” Greg says, his eyes glued to John still adjusting his leg in the snow. “Sherlock, _tu sais ça_.”

“I pushed the design on him. I paid for it. I convinced the Committee. I—”

“You helped him. Love, listen to me, you helped—”

“I hurt him. I ruined his race and he’ll never forgive—”

“Shh, look.” Greg grabs Sherlock’s elbow. “He is starting to ski now.”

“Fuck . . .”

“ _Regarde_.”

The crowd swoons forward in their desperation to see, breathing down Greg and Sherlock’s necks. Below them, John seems to take a breath, his eyes glancing up once at the sky. 

Then he slams his poles into the snow and starts skiing again from a total stop, grunting so loud with the first glide that Greg hears it all the way in the stands. John propels himself toward the first hill, quickly gaining speed, and his right leg holds strong, supporting the weight of his thigh. He half-sprints up the slope and into the trees.

Then Greg can’t see anymore; his world smears to a wet blur.

“ _Putain._ ”

He ducks his head and wipes his eyes just as the screen follows John over the crest of the first curve. Then it quickly cuts away from him to follow the leading pack, leaving John invisible to the crowd, alone on the course. There’s no coach yelling directions at him from the sidelines. No other athletes nearby. No cameras following his path on foot. No news crews or family holding up giant signs. No loved ones screaming his name the way Greg’s experienced for himself countless times.

It’s just John in the snow. Greg wonders how loud his breathing must sound to him. If all he can hear is the desolate slide of his own lonely skis.

Greg glances at the clock. Sixty-two seconds have passed since John’s body first hit the snow.

“He . . . he can’t come back,” Sherlock whispers, shaking his head like he’s in shock, still staring at the dent in the snow where John fell. “There’s no possible way he can come back, even if he shoots a perfect race, and everyone else blanks every shot. Even if he PR’s by two minutes eighteen, he can’t—”

“At least he is not hurt,” Greg forces himself to say, but it physically hurts to speak.

“It’s over,” Sherlock whispers.

Greg leans forward and holds his face in his hands, suddenly exhausted. 

“ _Oui._ ”

Because it _is_ over. All the training, and the months apart; the long nights John spent awake and aching in his leg and shoulder, too sore to sleep; all the sacrifices, and the arguments, the Paralympic Class tests and the special conditioning; the spotlight and the interviews and the third place time trial the day before . . .

All ripped from John’s hands just six seconds after the start.

Greg feels sick to his stomach even _thinking_ about how he would feel if it were him. If his knee had ripped apart on the first turn of his race four years ago instead of the last. If he’d ended up on his back in the snow, staring up at the sky and holding his broken pole, begging for someone to help.

He thinks of Sherlock’s head hitting the snow just a few days ago. His body slamming into the orange fence before sliding to a silent stop. He shifts in his seat and watches Sherlock’s chest rise and fall beneath his layers just to remind himself that he isn’t still lying on the slope.

Subtly, Sherlock’s foot presses against his own.

The rest of the lap passes by in a blur. Sherlock and Greg stare at the distant hints of the course as if through a fog. The camera cuts back to John every once in a while, but he’s all alone in the back of the race, and an eerie silence follows each of his strokes. 

Greg distantly registers that it looks like he’s skiing _hard_ —but then again, the camera can be deceiving when it comes to speed. And there’s no way John could ever make up for over a minute lost back at the start. Sherlock did the math himself.

By the time Kuznetsov predictably flies around the final bend of the lap in front, coming into view of the stadium for his shooting round, a clear separation among the pack has occurred. The skiers are almost in a single file line as they appear, with sometimes thirty seconds or even a full minute between them. The upper-limb deficient skiers all head down to the lanes with rifles already laid out, propped up in stabilizing stands. The others whip their guns around from where they’re strapped to their backs as they hurl themselves down to prone position, lining up their shots.

Greg barely even registers the announcers marking off the lead skiers’ hits and misses, or the dings of successful shots. He keeps his eyes fixed on the final curve, waiting and _waiting_ for John to appear.

The last place skier has just made their final shot, and two from the leading pack are already done with their penalty laps from misses, when John finally comes into view to a fresh wave of pitying, supportive applause from the crowd. 

He’s clearly panting hard, slamming his poles into the ice with every stroke. And his stride looks off, a bit lopsided, as if he’s putting more and more weight on his left leg, not trusting the right.

“Something’s off with the prosthetic,” Sherlock says, voicing Greg’s thoughts. He leans forward, half-hanging over the railing and squinting his eyes. “He isn’t able to glide on it. Like it’s locked—”

But just then, John skids to a dramatic stop at his assigned shooting lane, drops his gun to the ground, and suddenly smacks his prosthetic ankle so hard with his hand Greg imagines he can hear the slap of skin against metal. John drops down to prone position as easily as if he had two legs, his skis flying out behind him at perfect angles. He lifts his sunglasses off his head, scoops his rifle to his shoulder, and aims all in one single, fluid motion.

Greg stares, his mouth half-open. “Did he just . . . did he break . . . why is he shooting prone—?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even want to know.”

“ _Mon dieu._ ”

“Don’t bring God into this. He let John fall.”

They both continue watching in stunned silence as John’s heaving chest starts to calm after a handful of seconds, pressed flush against the mat laid out on the snow. The trembling in his body fades, going deathly still as he aims. 

He takes a visibly deep breath, straining the lycra racing suit, then:

_Ping!_

“He made the first one,” Greg breathes, “ _Bon_ —”

Then:

_Ping! Ping! Ping! . . . Ping!_

John hits the rest of the five targets so quickly, the green light and buzzer never even turn off. The crowd gasps in shock as the fastest shooting round of the day, possibly even of the entire Paralympics, is over so quickly it’s hard to believe it even began.

John hurls himself back to his feet in a way Greg’s never seen him do before, no longer keeping any weight off his prosthetic, and the crowd gapes. He swings his gun over his back, picks up his poles, and starts skiing like mad toward the first uphill curve leading back to the course.

And that’s when Greg realizes, with a pounding lurch in his chest, that the three slowest skiers are actually still visible, John quickly gaining on them as they start up the slope.

“I . . .” Greg swallows, his lips dry and cracked, “I have never seen him ski like this. _Et toi_?”

Sherlock shakes his head slowly, his eyes trained on John’s back as John unbelievably passes the last-place skier halfway up the curve. He sprints up the incline, his skis flying out before him to grip the snow.

“Look!” someone cries from behind them in the crowd.

All eyes zoom to the screen where the drone camera catches John in the middle of picking off the next skier, too. He takes the outside angle on a turn, then cuts back to the inner line, his skis tracing deep ruts in the snow. He passes the man so quickly, it looks like the Canadian is hardly moving at all.

“ _Putain,_ is he trying to—?”

“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.”

Greg closes his mouth. But another person in the crowd yells anyway, “That guy who fell is trying to get back in! ”

Sherlock turns around, presumably to eviscerate whoever just said that, but Greg elbows him, stopping himself just in time from squeezing Sherlock’s thigh.

“Be here. Be here for John, now,” he says. 

Sherlock swallows hard and nods.

The camera catches John picking off one more skier by skiing hard on a downhill stretch instead of just squating into a glide. Then Kuznetsov comes zooming back into the shooting range five minutes later, a good ten seconds before second place—Vanko from Ukraine.

The Russian has already made one shot and missed another by the time Vanko has his gun set up on the stabilizing stand. The rest of the skiers follow him in fading waves, standing or lying firm in the snow as they line up their shots, and the gun range fills with the crisp, beeping sounds of electronic fire.

Greg bites his lips, clenching his hands. He’s just about to ask Sherlock where he thinks John is when John comes flying into the stadium in a deep squat on the downhill curve, immediately heading for his shooting lane, past three skiers still actively taking their shots. The penalty loop is filled with four more making up for misses.

John’s legs look strong and clean as he skids to a stop, showering the next lane with ice. He tosses his poles to the ground. His stride barely even falters—his body’s fluid movements never ceasing for so much as a second.

Greg covers his mouth with his hand as John once again drops down to his belly, foregoing his normal standing position. He snatches his rifle to his chest, lines up his shoulders, pushes his glasses up onto his head, and aims.

Just like before, John’s heaving chest magically goes quiet as he cradles the gun to his shoulder. The camera zooms in on his finger hovering over the trigger, his tongue slipping out to lick his lips against the bitter cold. His sunglasses have rucked up the hood of his suit, exposing his sweat-matted hair. A bead of it drips slowly down his brow, clinging to the line of his nose. 

Sherlock’s freezing hand suddenly finds his, hidden between their thighs. Greg covers it with his own warm hand and holds on tight.

John closes his eye to aim, shutting out the chaos surrounding him. The camera zooms even closer, revealing every one of his eyelashes, snowflakes clinging to the tips.

“John,” Sherlock breathes, as if he didn’t mean to say it out loud.

Then John inhales, and the stadium holds its collective breath as he stills, flares his nostrils once, and pulls the trigger.

_Ping!_

Greg lets out a sigh of relief. Sherlock’s hand crushes his in a deadly grip between their seats.

Then:

_Ping! Ping! Ping!_

“ _Putain_ , it isn’t possible—”

_Ping!_

John is up on his feet before Greg can even finish his sentence, his gun slung back over his shoulders and his poles in his hands. John is now one of only three skiers with no missed shots—the ten white circles next to his name gleaming like suns, making Greg’s eyes water. 

Sherlock leaps to his feet and clasps his hands in front of his lips like a prayer, silently mouthing words. Greg joins him, clinging onto the railing, as John picks off yet another skier before heading into the first curve and out of sight of the stands. 

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” Sherlock whispers as the last athlete finally skis out of view from the penalty loop. He shakes his head, like he’s irritated at himself, “I don’t understand.”

Greg swallows and blinks until his eyes are clear. “ _Je ne comprends pas non plus_.”

“I . . . I don’t know where he’s trying to _land_.”

Greg doesn’t know what to say. He presses their shoulders together.

Minutes tick by like dull, sickening thuds. The agony of waiting in the grandstands, desperately hoping for the camera to periodically focus on John’s progress is making Greg’s heart race in an odd rhythm, and he’s sweating so badly he eventually shucks off his jacket onto his seat.

Sherlock, beside him, hunches even deeper into his layers of coats, his lips vaguely blue.

Greg keeps his eyes glued to the screen as John’s red, white, and blue lycra comes into view again in shining HD, this time moving swiftly around two Norwegians so that his name on the leaderboard blinks and moves up into thirteenth. Scattered groups of people cheer behind them, and Greg catches Union Jacks waving out of the corner of his eye. 

“Have you looked at his time?” he murmurs to Sherlock.

Sherlock shakes his head, his hands still clasped in front of his mouth, and his entire spine rigid and taut. “ _Toi?_ ”

“ _Non._ ”

Unable to bear the endless waiting for a moment longer, Greg slides his phone out of his pocket, nearly dropping it with his sweating hand, and swipes it on. He pulls up a search bar, grateful that his phone inexplicably gets service even in this stadium in the mountains, and he quickly types in a search with shaking fingers for live news coverage of the event, along with John’s name.

Tweets and various up-to-the-minute news headlines scroll past him in a blur:

_Watson, Great Britain, falls on first straightaway of course. Pole broken. Possible injury or damage to prosthesis . . ._

_Ex-RAF pilot and amputee Group Captain John H. Watson continues heroic race after being knocked down in a scuffle at the mass start. Shows inspiring determination that kept him alive after his infamous crash . . ._

_Watson, initially slated to place thirty-two out of forty in time-trials, now sitting in thirteenth in Finals after shocking third-place time-trials finish; updating every thirty seconds . . ._

_Above-knee amputee J. Watson, Great Britain, Standing Class, could make Paralympic history today by finishing his race on his newly-approved prosthesis. Could also make British Olympic history if he places top fifteen . . ._

_Watson will never catch up to the likes of Kuznetsov and Vanko—in a league of their own—but he may just inspire a new generation of amputee skiers by continuing his race after his tragic fall . . ._

_Can this British biathlete actually medal in this thing? No. But what he’s showing is the fire of the Olympic spirit . . . the whole purpose of the Games . . ._

“They’re all idiots,” Sherlock mutters to him. 

Greg jumps like he’s been caught out looking at something embarrassing, then shoves his phone back in his pocket. “I cannot stand the waiting.”

Sherlock irritatingly hums.

“They should have multiple screens,” Greg goes on, just to say something at all. “Cameras on each major section of the course. Continuous coverage . . .”

“I’d be most interested to find out where you plan to find the funding for such a production, considering this is probably the first time in history a Paralympic Final has ever sold out.”

Greg makes a conscious effort not to grow irritated. “Perhaps they will be inspired by John’s race.”

“You know he loathes that word. Inspired. Everyone falling down at his feet just because he’s still breathing. Just because he can open doors for himself and cook his own food.”

“You know that is not what I meant—”

“They all say that spotlight of his was _inspiring_ —that so-called piece of ‘journalism’—and yet, I certainly didn’t see John’s mobile blowing up with calls offering him sponsorship deals.”

“You are nervous for him and taking it out on me.”

“But you brought it up in the first pla—”

“Don’t. Please.”

Sherlock’s mouth clicks shut, and he takes a few moments to look out over the trees. Greg can practically feel him vibrating with the energy in his bones. They both stare unseeing at the empty shooting range, waiting for the race to come back for the third and final shooting round before the last lap.

“ _Désolé_ ,” Sherlock eventually whispers, sounding exhausted and very small. “It’s just . . . I need to see what’s going on. I need to _know_. And I can’t . . .”

“And I am agreeing with you.”

“This is the worst thing I have ever witnessed. I’d rather be watching his spotlight piece on a loop.”

Greg swallows hard. He hates himself for not standing up and hugging John that morning, crowded athletes’ dining hall or no. Hates himself for not texting John every second of the day that he is loved, no matter how he does today, that they are proud—

A gasp rolls through the crowd. 

Greg and Sherlock look back to the screen just in time to catch John digging deep with his poles, squatting down for strength, then bursting forward to pass yet another skier, leaving him behind in the snow.

John’s name next to the tiny Union Jack in the standings on the side of the screen blinks, then moves up one place.

Into tenth.

And just like that, everything shifts.

The stands go eerily still, almost silent as the drone cameras start to slowly track through the entire field on the screen, starting way back with the twentieth place skier and moving up to first. Greg wonders when was the last time that either he or Sherlock breathed.

It’s as if everyone can sense that something unprecedented and fragile is happening out on the snow. Something that can’t even be spoken aloud. Even the journalists are quiet in their microphones, their bodies frozen. Camera lenses are fixed blindly in place, waiting for the final shooting round.

The buzzing tension hangs over the crowd as the seconds tick by, broken only by pockets of small cheers when a particular country’s athlete is shown on the screen. The camera reaches the fifth place Canadian skier, who just overtook number six from Norway. And they’re both tight on the heels of fourth place, a Czech skier who started the race in tenth.

The crowd holds their breath, and Greg grips the railing as his knees grow weak, when the camera slowly pans through an open expanse of snow—just an empty, rutted course, scars carved into the earth, until it reaches . . .

Eighth place. John Watson. 

He rounds the final curve into the stadium headed straight for the shooting lanes, his strides long and strong. Kuznetsov is still lying on his belly, aiming for his fourth shot. Vanko’s setting up his third.

Greg closes his eyes as John joins the top ten in their lanes, the bibs on their backs glaring bright in the sun.

His mind shows him John throwing away his poles, lying down on his belly, adjusting his leg. His mind shows him John holding up his weight on his forearms, calming the panting in his chest, and lining up his gun with steady hands.

His mind shows him John taking a deep breath, aiming for his shot. Shows him John’s finger starting to pull on the trigger. Then:

_Ack!_

“Fuck,” Sherlock curses beside him. 

Greg’s eyes fly open. He desperately searches for John’s shooting lane down below, looking for the huge red X for the shot he just missed . . .

But it isn’t there.

Instead Vanko, beside him, shows a red X for his missed fourth shot.

_Ack!_

The crowd groans, then people start to cry out in surprise: Kuznetsov missed his fifth.

“ _Mon dieu_ , I cannot watch this,” Greg groans. 

But he watches John look carefully to the right, then the left. Then John shakes his shoulders, re-aims his gun, takes another deep breath, and—

_Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!_

The crowd explodes.

John tosses his rifle away into the snow, along with his sunglasses, then yanks off his hood. He plants his palms into the mat and practically leaps up to his left foot in a single leg squat. He adjusts his prosthetic and skis in less than two seconds, grabs his poles from the dumbstruck course attendant beside him, then digs into the earth, bursting with sudden speed. He goes streaming past the other competitors still pulling themselves together for the last lap, not sparing a glance for anything but the course looming before him.

His name blinks up on the screen as the camera zooms in on his leg and skis. Fifteen white circles shine next to his name—a perfectly shot race.

The names rearrange as athletes finish their penalty laps and rejoin the course, falling into a frenzied final race for the podium. John leaves view of the stadium for the last time, disappearing into the maze of cameras and coaches and trees—

In fifth place.

“He’s two minutes and twenty-one seconds ahead of his PR,” Sherlock says, in an oddly flat and controlled voice.

Greg nods, staring at the spot of white snow where he’d last glimpsed John’s skis. “ _Oui._ ”

“He . . . he’s only shot a clean race once. In Sapporo. But those were forty metre shooting lanes. Not fifty . . .”

Sherlock sounds like he’s lost—that, or quickly breaking apart. But Greg can’t muster up anything within himself to help. Can’t turn him back into the Sherlock Holmes who was berating the entire crowd, calling everyone idiots and fools, sniffing Greg’s ugly jacket and smuggling in biscuits.

He feels like his lungs are being pierced by each competitor’s poles as they ski past. Like the world is no longer in focus, going hazy with each of the pounding beats of his heart.

Stupidly, and because there’s nothing better to do other than stare at the screen until his eyes fall out, Greg once again checks his phone:

_Something unprecedented is taking place in the Paralympic Biathlon Finals—happening now. Tune to our LIVE COVERAGE to see just what it is . . ._

_Could this unknown Brit take a medal away from Russia and Norway’s darling sport? We’ll certainly find out within the next ten minutes . . ._

_Ten facts you need to know about John Watson—the amputee currently stunning the world after his devastating fall in the first seconds of his Paralympic Biathlon race . . ._

_What would a Briton placing Top 10 mean for Para-biathlon, and for Alpine skiing as a whole? We spoke to some experts . . ._

“Gregory,” he hears gasped beside him.

Greg looks up, completely unaware of how many minutes have passed, hating himself that he spent even a single second on his phone instead of glued to the course, when Sherlock says his name again in a wet voice.

“Gregory . . .”

Then he sees it. Though the camera isn’t currently on him, John’s name is blinking in the standings, the tiny Union Jack’s colors shining bright against the clear blue sky.

He moves up to fourth.

“Sherlock,” Greg whispers back, then his throat closes up. 

He didn’t know his body could _survive_ this amount of emotional strain, let alone do extraneous things like speak, or grab onto the edge of Sherlock’s sleeve, or read words on a screen. His skin shivers as a wave of thick, icy cold spreads over his body, swiftly replacing the stifling heat he’s been feeling all afternoon, and his ribs struggle to expand. 

Long minutes pass. 

The camera follows John for only a few seconds as he flies down another slope, his poles clenched tight in his fists and his face blank with concentration, before it focuses back on the top three leading the race to a fresh wave of stadium cheers.

“His legs look tired,” Sherlock whispers. “Not as smooth as his stride was in the beginning.”

Greg nods.

Slowly, far too slowly, the camera starts to track once more through the ranks as the earliest group nears the final few curves of the winding course. They view twentieth, fifteenth, tenth, ninth and eighth. They spend a few seconds on the tight-knit group all jostling for fifth through seventh.

They cut to the fourth place skier, racing with all his might through the thick snow—

But it isn’t John.

Then they glimpse the skier just ahead in third place through the trees, hurling himself around a turn, looking devastating and strong and exhausted—

But the uniform is yellow and blue: it’s Vanko.

Which means—

Without thinking, Greg grabs the railing in front of them and throws one leg over.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sherlock cries, as if broken from a trance.

He tries to reach for Greg’s arm to pull him back, snatching at his sleeves, but Greg drops the few feet down to the snow, grunting at the pain that punches through his knee. 

“Stay here.”

“But you can’t just—!”

“ _Écoute_ —do not follow.”

Greg takes off at a run, dodging confused reporters and course attendants, then he glances back at Sherlock over his shoulder, who’s lifting a leg up to the railing. 

“ _Arrête!_ ” Greg calls to him. “Stay here for him!”

He keeps running without stopping to check that Sherlock heard.

With numb, shaking fingers, Greg frantically tries to fish his badge out of his pocket. He sprints to the fencing separating the press area from the actual boundaries of the course, where other athletes’ coaches are strewn along the sidelines, waiting to shout final instructions on the last curve. 

The guard at the fence throws up a hand. “Stop! This is a restricted—”

“I am his coach! I’m Watson’s coach!” Greg yells. He throws up his coaching badge in a brief flash, already shoving himself through the flimsy gate. 

“You need a special—”

“I’m his fucking coach!”

Greg breaks through and runs like mad to reach the beginnings of the long final curve, where he can just see Kuznetsov’s skis coming into view. He stumbles once, nearly falling to his knees in the ice and slush. Sweat prickles across his skin.

On the course, the Russian heaves himself around the turn, his single pole digging hard into the earth with every gasping stride. Greg’s stomach drops as he leaves Kuznetsov behind, desperately waiting for John to come into view. The fire in his knee screams at him to stop. 

He doesn’t see John yet; he keeps going.

But he glances once over his shoulder: Kuznetsov is definitely slowing down now, having almost reached the top of the hill before the final long stretch to the finish. The crowd are on their feet applauding him in from the grandstands, Russian flags flying like a billowing quilt in the wind.

Greg turns back around, gasping for breath and ready to fall over. 

And he sees John Watson.

“John!” 

John’s head whips up from where he’d been looking down at his skis, his teeth gritted and his red face dripping with sweat. He fixes Greg with a dead stare—so brief Greg can’t even tell if John’s shocked to see him there.

And _oh_ , John . . .

Greg’s never seen him look so exhausted. His normally strong stride is thumping and erratic, moving jerkily across the snow. Greg pales when he notices Vanko steadily gaining from behind—gunning for Silver. 

“John!” Greg yells again. He runs at the edges of the course by John’s side as John struggles up the final hill. He slams into the other coaches, shoving them out of the way. “Kuznetsov is right there! He is still racing!”

John shakes his head and grunts as he fights to make it to the top of the slope, his thighs visibly shaking and his weight falling awkwardly on the prosthetic. 

Greg can see the fight dying in John’s body, like a physical energy seeping out from his limbs in a thick fog. Like he’s spent every ounce of energy and doesn’t have a single thing left. Even his eyes look flat, as if the blue has been sucked out of them and thrown off into the open sky.

He’s barely moving as he nears the crest, he’s skiing so slow. Close behind him, Vanko plants his poles and starts his final ascent.

Greg himself has been in this position thousands of times before—the finish waiting before him, fire in his muscles and breath stolen from his lungs as he pushes for one more metre, one more stroke. He’s been _right there_ , and he’s fought, and he’s clawed tooth and nail for the finish, never giving up until his skis cross that line in the snow.

He _knows_ it, better than he knows his own reflection in the mirror.

And so as much as he wants to call out for John to rest, to pull him into his arms and kiss away the pain in his limbs, he keeps running. Because John Watson did not just fight his way back from dead last to _rest_ when Kuznetsov is only twenty meters ahead of him, and there is still one-hundred and fifty meters of course left.

No fucking way.

“Listen to me!” Greg calls to him, nearly tripping in the snow. He cups his palms around his mouth as he runs.

“ _C’est ton combat_!” John grimaces at the ground, and Greg curses himself. “John, this is your fight!”

And miraculously, Greg thinks he sees John speeding up to match his strides as they reach the crest. Thinks that Kuznetsov is steadily flagging, but he can’t think about him. Not now.

“ _Je suis ici avec toi_.” His voice grows rough and hoarse as his sprint takes a toll on his lungs. “I am here! I’m not leaving!”

And as John shakes his head again at the ground, gritting his teeth with a harsh grunt, Greg’s eyes grow wet, and delicate words pour from his lips. 

“And you have never left me.”

Something shifts, then. It tightens in the air with a whipcord snap.

John’s jaw is set now, his poles digging faster into the ice. Greg finds he can barely keep up as John finally squats into the final downhill, flying toward the last stretch of the course to the flags at the finish. 

And Kuznetsov is still flagging . . . still struggling to hold onto the race . . . 

Greg runs like he didn’t know his body could still run, the world flying past his eyes. “ _S’il te plaît_ , fight now!” he cries out to John, his voice breaking. “ _Mon coeur, mon soldat—_ ”

John suddenly stares up at Greg halfway through his next stride, pinning him in the snow. Greg stops in his tracks, wheezing and stunned, at the deep blue of John’s eyes.

“Ski swift,” he says, almost whispers, his voice immediately lost to the wind.

John turns back to the course, fixes his eyes on the back of the Russian, and starts to sprint.

Greg barely registers the animal roar of the crowd as they all simultaneously realize that John is not accepting Kuznetsov’s all but inevitable Gold. He leaves Vanko further and further behind with every leaping stride, burying him in clouds of kicked up ice and snow. 

Greg stands stranded at the edge of the course and stares up at the screen, still struggling to catch his breath, his hands on his knees. The drone camera zooms in on John as he steadily gains on the Russian—who seems to realize, with only fifty meters left to the finish, that he is not alone on the final stretch.

The race is on.

Kuznetsov reaches down into himself for a final burst of strength, but his arm is flailing madly, his pole barely making contact with the snow as he struggles to remain standing over his frantic strides. His skis get caught in the thick ruts carved into the snow from the earlier laps of the race. The Russian fans in the crowd scream, their flags soaring, whistles searing the sky . . .

But the wave of Great Britain flags is stronger. Brighter. Madder. Blocking out the sun.

Greg doesn’t think he’s _ever_ heard an Olympics crowd cheer like this—not for anything, or anyone. Not even for him. He feels every bursting stride of the skiers flying past him in his own muscles. Feels their heartbeats in his chest. Their sweat-covered poles in his own fingers.

He watches the beautiful boy he once kissed breathlessly in the snow fight like a soldier down the final stretch of brutal snow for Gold. And Greg is twenty-one again, sitting on a ski lift. Having his world tipped sideways when he turns to his left and sees deep blue eyes. Soft hands and broad shoulders. A wicked smile. Strong and bright and _his_ and—

John angles to the right on the straightaway, his arms pinwheeling his poles into the snow over and over again in a terrifyingly fast rhythm, almost like an animal, and Kuznetsov is falling apart, like a machine with the parts crumbling out of place. John’s five metres behind him now, and Greg can hear his grunts echoed back to him across the ice.

Two metres behind, and the roar of the crowd is so deafening Greg thinks that the heavens might be falling down, the skies breaking in half, the mountains cracking into an avalanche.

One metre, and their skis are nearly clacking together, the finish just ten metres away, mere steps to the Gold . . .

“J,” Greg breathes, tears brimming in his eyes.

And then, as the sun breaks through the clouds above, and the cameras and crowds watch from the finish line in shock, John roars, and he squeezes his eyes shut, slamming his poles down into the ice, the metal of his right leg flaring like the sun—

And the camera catches one ski crossing the finish line first—mere hairsplitting tenths of a second ahead—

A ski with the Russian flag.

For a horrifying moment, Greg’s heart sinks down into the snow. He can’t draw in any breath, and he can’t see, and everything around him is hopeless and empty and bleak . . .

“They’re calculating the Factored Time!” calls one of the other coaches—decked out in Team USA gear.

Greg curses. He can’t believe he’d _forgotten_. He takes two unsteady steps forward, his eyes wide and fixed on the screen rising above the distant peaks. It isn’t over. John could still . . .

The stadium seems to fall silent except for the Russian cheering section towards the back. The earth rushes away, muffled as Greg waits, absolutely frozen, for the screen to confirm the final results.

Seconds pass. The camera stays fixated on John and Kuznetsov standing blankly next to each other in the snow, both still in their skis, gasping for breath and rest and water but not daring to tear their eyes away from the screen, their fate projected in the sky. 

Other skiers rush past them for their own finishes, but neither John nor Kuznetsov blink. They both look on the verge of collapse. Surrounding them, other athletes drop to their backs in the snow, trying to recover.

For a brief second, John’s hand reaches up over his shoulder, touching the top of his back.

Then, like an explosion of color and sound, the screen shifts, and the medalists’ names and national flags are projected in huge shining letters, one by one.

_V. Kuznetsov, OAR — Bronze — 44.33.01_

Shock bursts across the stadium that it isn’t Vanko’s name sitting in third. The Russian fans cry out at the shocking loss of the Gold, even as Russian flags soar up into the air throughout the stands, almost unsure of how to celebrate the Bronze.

The camera cuts to Kuznetsov holding his head in his hands, looking down at the snow and breathing hard. 

John hasn’t moved a muscle. He looks stunned.

The screen changes again:

_C. Johanssen, NOR — Silver — 43.21.00_

Another shocked gasp rips through the grandstands, and one of the coaches behind Greg curses under his breath. Surprised cheers burst from one section of the crowd, Norwegian flags filling the sky as the fans go wild for their country’s Silver.

The Norwegian had been fourth across the finish line before his time was adjusted, and Greg swallows down a wave of nausea at what this means for John, watching as cameras swarm him and Vanko down by the finish line, aiming for the best reaction shot.

It has to be one of them; the fifth place skier had been nearly a full minute behind the leading pack of four.

Greg tries to search for Sherlock back in the crowds, but all he sees is a blur of signs and flags. His stomach lurches as the screen changes again.

Greg’s hand covers his mouth.

_J. Watson, GBR — Gold — 43.20.55_

The stadium erupts. 

It’s as if the earth has exploded into streams of red, white, and blue as Union Jacks soar across the stands, drowning out every other color. The camera zooms in on John’s face as he stares at the screen, unmoving, with his mouth dropped open. 

He isn’t smiling.

Greg starts to panic, thinking John could be hurt, or dehydrated and confused. He watches Kuznetsov’s hand clap down on John’s shoulder, and John jumps as if ripped out of a dream. He stares at the other man with wide, blank eyes, and for a moment, the two of them alone are unmoving in the celebrating stadium.

Then Kuznetsov smiles. He reaches down for John’s hand, which John slowly takes, and the Russian shakes it once. Hard. He says something to John, utterly lost to the crowd except for his lips moving up on the screen. John seems to struggle to say something back.

And then John drops his hand, and he looks up at the stadium which is screaming for him, not even noticing the four cameras pointed directly in his face. He stares at it all as if from far, far away, his face still carefully blank.

“You won, sir,” someone’s voice is faintly saying through the stadium speakers, picked up on a camera mic. “Sir, you have won.”

Then John’s face crumbles, and Greg’s heart snaps in half as John collapses forward, his hands on his knees.

Greg starts running. He sprints down the middle of the course, not caring that he isn’t allowed to leave the sidelines. He needs to _get_ to him. To _see_ that he is alright. To tell him—

He glances back up to the screen. John’s German friend has met him by the finish, and he’s pulled John down into his arms. He’s yelling something, slapping John’s back with a giant grin.

Greg keeps running.

This moment is worth every Gold medal he has ever had around his neck. It’s worth every morning he woke up in a bed without John Watson in it beside him. And Greg suddenly knows that he would stand at the bottom of one thousand courses he’ll never be able to ski on, stare at one thousand medals he’ll never be able to win, if it means that he can stand by John Watson in this moment.

The moment he _won_.

Projected up in the sky, John has unclipped his skis and stepped back from Walter, his cheeks shining wet. He barely manages to fit on his walking foot before he starts limping through the snow towards the railing at the edge of the media area, his arms outstretched.

For a blinding, soaring moment, Greg thinks John’s coming to him—even though he’s still fifty metres or more away, and John couldn’t possibly see him over the swarming crowd of athletes and media. His heart thuds in his chest, threatening to leap out and land in the snow, when—

Sherlock Holmes appears on screen, to a burst of even more cheers from the crowd. 

He’s somehow fought his way down into the journalists’ area, surrounded by cameras and microphones pointed toward John. John doesn’t even seem to notice them. He takes two more stumbling steps, then falls into Sherlock’s arms across the railing.

Greg slows his run in the middle of the final straightaway, a lump rising in his throat as Sherlock crushes John in his arms. The cameras zoom in a frenzied swarm as Sherlock’s hand comes to cup the back of John’s head, caressing his hair. John’s back shakes, as if he’s crying, and Sherlock’s beanie falls to the snow, his curls tumbling across John’s cheek as he holds John close. Sherlock whispers to him—unheard words on shaking lips.

It almost looks too intimate to be seen, too much . . .

But when John pulls back, he looks like a man Greg’s never seen before. He looks even younger than the boy Greg once kissed in the trees. He looks like he never once put on a uniform, or took off in a plane, or fell to the sand. He looks like he has lived every day of his life with a Gold medal hanging bright around his neck.

He’s _beaming_.

Greg’s going to join them. He’s going to pull John into his own hug and clutch him to his own chest. He’s going to whisper to him from the depths of his soul and the corners of his heart. He’s going to tell him that he _fought_ , and it was the most beautiful thing Greg’s ever seen. He’s going to—

Sherlock blinks up on the screen, an odd look passing through his eyes. His breathless smile fades, a glistening tear slipping down his cheek. He licks his lips and whispers a single word to John—one syllable alone.

Then he takes John’s face in his huge hands in shining, brilliant HD—

And he kisses him.

Greg stops in his tracks. 

The stadium fades out of focus, and time becomes untraceable and slow. He thinks he registers the bright lights of hundreds of cameras flashing all at once. Thinks he hears a muffled wave of shocked gasps coming from the grandstands. Thinks he sees John’s hands go straight to the front of Sherlock’s jacket—Greg’s Rossignol jacket—and clutch at the fabric. Thinks that Sherlock reaches down and pulls John up into his arms as they kiss . . . and kiss . . .

Greg takes a stumbling step backwards as something stabs through his chest. His eyes are burning and hot.

“Hey, isn’t that Holmes? Your skier?”

Greg feels like he’s turning in slow motion, every sound echoing strangely in his ears, when he recognizes the American coach from earlier coming up behind him. He realizes he’s briefly met him before, back when they both wore racing suits.

“I . . . yes,” Greg says. He doesn’t even recognize his own voice.

The other coach gives him an odd look, almost hesitant. “Did you . . . did you not know?” He nods up at the screen, where Greg looks to see that John and Sherlock have pulled back, and are staring at each other with bright eyes, breathing hard, as if the stadium doesn’t exist. The coach clears his throat. “About . . . them?”

Finding it inordinately difficult to stay standing, Greg wipes his sweating hands off on his thighs, and he hides his wince at the painful, ripping jolt through his knee. “I knew,” he says, then he realizes it had come out as barely a whisper, and he tries again. “Yes, I knew. I . . . I know them. Both. Know Watson.”

The American coach pauses, then gives Greg a very exaggerated smile and nod. “Ah, okay! That’s great!” he says, speaking so loudly and slowly that Greg realizes he thinks Greg doesn’t speak fluent English.

The coach laughs, then, shaking his head as he crosses his arms over his chest. “That will be all over Twitter, er . . . you know? The internet? Computers? Everyone will be talking about this.”

When Greg doesn’t say anything, _can’t_ say anything, the coach adds, “I don’t know about France, but this will be very big news in the US—the United States of America. And England, where Watson’s from.”

Greg finally shakes his head. On the screen, Sherlock can no longer be seen, and John is standing by the finish next to three different interviewers, his eyes glistening with unshed tears and a Union Jack draped around his shoulders. Behind him, the mountains pierce the sky, and the crowd cheers on their feet.

Greg looks back to the other coach, trying to appear cool and casual as his heart beats up in his throat, and his fingers feel numb. “In France, too. It will be big news,” he manages to say.

The coach claps him on the shoulder with a friendly grin. “Good thing you’re okay with it,” he says, still speaking to Greg like he’s five. He gives him a thumbs up. “Good luck!”

Greg nods in response.

Over the booming loudspeakers, he hears the familiar voice of Sonya Wesley filling the stadium, and the crowd erupts with fresh applause.

“John Watson!” she says. 

Greg’s eyes fill with tears as he looks back at John’s face on the screen—at the way the entire earth is falling at his feet, the sun illuminating his golden hair, the strength in his legs.

Sonya continues, “You just made Paralympic _history_ in Standing Class. You set a new Factored Time Course Record, shot the first clean Biathlon race in two Paralympics, _and_ won the Gold medal. All from last place on that first straightaway. How do you feel?”

John laughs—the giggle he only ever used to do around just Sherlock and Greg. 

Greg’s chest physically aches as he gazes up at him from the snow. At the stadium lights reflected in John’s eyes, and the way the Union Jack’s colors look gorgeous against his shining skin, and the glistening sheen of moisture on his lips from Sherlock Holmes’ mouth.

He wonders if he himself ever looked so devastatingly beautiful after he just won Gold.

Probably not—he never had someone to kiss.

“I don’t even know,” John says, still panting a bit for breath. He grins, and Sonya grins with him, then he laughs again. “Just glad to be here.”

“I think I can say with full conviction that your record-breaking race will be the star feature of every Pyeongchang highlight reel for the next four years. Tell me, what was going through your mind right after you fell?”

A cold wind rips across Greg’s skin, causing him to shiver. But on the screen, John looks like the sun itself as he answers her, shaking his head, “Like I was not very glad to be here. And that the snow was wet.”

Sonya laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear, stepping even closer to John. To Greg’s right, the crowds are still waving flags through the air, pulsing with noise.

“Now, I don’t think I have to tell you that you just made another kind of history this afternoon, too,” she says, and Greg realizes with a horrifying thud in his stomach that the camera is panning back to catch Sherlock in the frame. 

Sonya beams at John. “Can you tell us more about who is here to celebrate your victory with you?”

But when the camera pans to Sherlock, Sherlock isn’t looking at Sonya, or at John. Instead, he’s looking oddly off camera, and his skin is too pale, almost like he’s afraid.

Greg frowns. He rips his eyes away from the screen and peers through the crowds of people on the course instead, trying to figure out which direction Sherlock is looking. 

He finally catches a hint of brown curls through the masses, feels the weight of eyes on him like a cold beam.

And he sees that Sherlock Holmes is staring straight at him from about fifty feet away, a look of something like horror on his face, his eyes blown wide. Ignoring the interview, Sherlock takes a step towards him, lifting his hand like he’s going to wave, his mouth already starting to form a word—

Greg can’t bear it. 

“ _You promised_!” he wants to scream at Sherlock across the snow. “ _You agreed. We all agreed!_ ”

And he wants to shove everyone at the finish out of the way and place the Gold medal around John’s neck himself. He wants to grip Sherlock’s curls in his hands and ask him why he just ruined it—why he just revealed _everything_ for the world to see. 

Why neither of them seemed to wonder where Greg was up on the screen. Why John didn’t wait for Greg's own hug over the railing.

But then he remembers the way John fell into Sherlock’s arms, burned now into his memory. Remembers the way their bodies fit together so perfectly, their muscles aligning. The way their kiss had seemed so inevitable, so _right_ and brilliant, like there shouldn’t be anyone else there at all. No one standing between them.

This had always been _their_ Olympics, hadn’t it? Their moment, and their time? 

Greg had known even back in London, standing at the top of the stairs. He had known when John stepped into the medical room and immediately took Sherlock into his arms, and not Greg. Had known when the two of them showed up in his room in the middle of the night, breathless from sprinting across the Village from security and kissing in the snow.

Had known the first time he glimpsed Sherlock putting his hands on John’s leg, and John not pulling away.

That first day on the side of the mountain, after Sherlock admitted he pushed John down the slope. And John had grinned.

Distantly, he registers that the interview has continued, but he can’t seem to focus on the words. They don’t make sense anymore. He starts to walk off the course in a random direction, away from the crowds, awkwardly fumbling with his phone in his hand for no reason at all. His heart aches.

He stops, just once, before he reaches the gate leading away to the road, and looks back over his shoulder.

He sees Sherlock on the gigantic screen, shying away from the cameras with a slight frown, glancing at the spot where Greg had been standing with a look of quiet concern.

And he sees John, staring around himself in awe at the stadium that’s risen to its feet solely for him. The colors of his country draped about his shoulders, and the world hanging on his every word. Sees him gazing up at Sherlock Holmes like he’s the brighter than the sun—than every star.

Greg curses under his breath, shaking his head at himself. He thinks of the million reasons why watching John win a Gold medal is the happiest day of his life. Is worth every memory of loneliness. Is worth a kiss on a screen.

Then he wipes a shaking hand over his eyes, turns his back on the Olympic stadium, and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New French shenanigans:
> 
> Vraiment? C’est de ça dont tu veux parler? Il n’y a rien de plus important en ce moment? : Really? This is what you want to discuss? There isn't anything more important going on?  
> On ne va pas parler des cuillères : We are not talking about spoons.  
> Pas de soucis : No problem  
> C'est un prix international : it's an international prize / award  
> Dors : sleep  
> trop molle : too soft  
> Tu peux caresser mes cheveux ? : Will you touch my hair?  
> le bossu de notre dame : the hunchback of Notre Dame  
> Je pense que tu devrais lui montrer un peu plus de respect : I think you should show it a bit more respect.  
> Bonne chance : good luck  
> Ça tu vas me le payer : You will pay for this.  
> Tais-toi : shut up / shut it  
> Si confiant, si courageux : so confident, so brave.  
> On a survécu : we survived  
> Tu sais ça : you know this  
> Mais reste ici : but wait here  
> Regarde : look  
> Je suis ici avec toi : I'm here with you
> 
> A truly unsung hero of this fic is my translator P. Not only does she translate faster than should be humanly possible, she also adds such warmth, vibrancy, wit, and color to Greg and Sherlock's dialogue. I'm forever grateful for her time and expertise! All remaining errors are totally my own.
> 
> \--
> 
> I KNOW. I KNOW. I promise all will be resolved and all 3 of them will be happy and loved. There's still a hell of a lot of this fic left. Remember the happy ending tag?
> 
> Para-biathlon starts are usually (from what I can tell) *not* mass starts. They start similar to a time trial, with each athlete being let out one at a time and staggered. BUT where would be the drama in that?! So I changed it. FIGHT ME. 
> 
> If you think it's too damn unrealistic to have a skier move from dead last after a fall at the start and still win Gold, I will briefly tell you of Simen Hegstad Krueger. The Norwegian cross-country hopeful fell in the opening lap mass start of the Pyeongchang Skiathlon, broke his pole and had to wait for a replacement, then started skiing again a full 36 seconds behind the last skier in the pack. He fought his way back over the course of the long race to gain nearly a 20 SECOND LEAD -- skiing into Gold with his two countrymen bringing up a clean medals sweep behind him. I start to cry just thinking of the footage of his final lap. It may not have been the Paralympic Biathlon, but it still proved anything is possible.
> 
> I'll admit this chapter kicked my ass a bit (EVERYBODY PRAISE MEL). It was the first scene I thought of from this whole fic, and I've been daydreaming about how it would play out for over a year. So I am REALLY EXCITED TO HEAR WHAT YOU THINK <3<3<3 Thank you all.
> 
> \-- 
> 
> Next time: John takes a few minutes to compose himself in an empty locker room before his medal ceremony. He hears the door handle turn slowly behind him. 
> 
> It's Greg.


End file.
